,^^ 

^1^ 


BX  7233  .C33  C5 
Campbell,  R.  J.  1867-1956 
City  Temple  sermons 


CITY     TEMPLE 
SERMONS 


CITY    TEMPLE 
SERMONS 


BY 


R.  J.  CAMPBELL,   M.  A, 


of  London 


NEW   YORK  CHICAGO  TORONTO 

FLEMING   H.    REVELL   COMPANY 

LONDON   AND   EDINBURGH 


Copyright,  1903,  by 

FLEMING   H.    REVELL  COMPANY 

(June) 


THIRD    EDITION 


New  York:  158  Fifth  Avenue 
Chicago:  63  Washington  Street 
Toronto:  27  Richmond  Street,  W. 
[.ondon:  21  Paternoster  Square 
Edinburgh:    30  St.  Mary  Street 


AN   OUTLOOK 

THERE  are  not  a  few  persons  who  maintain 
that  the  day  of  religious  enthusiasm  is  past 
and  gone  for  ever ;  that  men  are  becoming  in- 
creasingly secular  in  interest  and  outlook;  and  that 
faith  has  given  way  before  the  broad  light  of  reason. 
This  opinion  is  freely  expressed  both  in  the  study  and 
in  the  street ;  but,  if  we  interpret  the  signs  of  the  times 
correctly,  the  facts  are  against  it,  and  in  favour  of 
the  hope  of  a  revival  of  religious  fervour,  zeal,  and 
power. 

Some  of  these  indications  can  be  briefly  stated. 
There  is,  to  begin  with,  a  somewhat  different  mood 
observable  in  the  younger  ministry  of  the  evangelical 
churches.  The  intellectual  sermon  per  se,  itself  a  re- 
action against  an  unintellectual  type  of  gospel  preach- 
ing, is  giving  way  to  a  more  spiritual  form  of  address 
which,  without  ceasing  to  be  thoughtful,  appeals  to 
the  spiritual  instincts  of  the  hearer  and  quickens  the 
moral  sense.  Another  sign  is  to  be  found  in  the  atti- 
tude of  the  hearers  themselves.  With  comparatively 
few  exceptions,  congregations  do  not  ask  either  for 
scientific  lectures,  or  literary  theses,  in  the  place  of 
sermons.  They  do  not  seek  ornate  and  pompous  dis- 
courses on  the  one  hand,  or  conventional  platitudes  on 
the  other;  but  they  hunger  for  something  strong,  and 
deep,  and  true,  suggestive  of  heaven  and  holiness,  and 

3 


4  AN    OUTLOOK 

the  living,  loving  Christ.  The  more  direct  and  simple 
the  style,  and  the  more  rich  and  real  the  spiritual  ex- 
perience of  the  preacher,  the  more  the  people  welcome 
the  message.     They  crave  the  note  of  certainty. 

Nor  is  this  all.  The  world  cannot  live  on  negations 
and  pessimisms  for  ever.  We  have  had  our  period  of 
criticism,  analysis,  and  sweeping  demolitions.  Science 
has  had  her  say,  and  revised  her  dicta  more  than  once. 
Biblical  criticism  has,  in  some  instances,  almost 
reached  the  reductio  ad  absurdum  stage.  The  fash- 
ionable mental  mood  has  been,  and  perhaps  still  is, 
agnosticism.  We  even  hear  a  shout  of  triumph  from 
the  side  of  those  unaccountable  people  who  desire  to 
see  religion  discredited.  But  the  shout  is  itself  an  in- 
dication in  favour  of  the  recrudescence  of  faith.  His- 
tory can  furnish  many  parallels  for  it.  But  always  in 
the  history  of  Christendom,  at  the  very  moment  when 
revealed  religion  has  been  declared  to  be  dead  and 
buried,  God's  prophets  have  arisen  and  bidden  the  dry 
bones  live.  History  will  repeat  itself  once  more.  Hu- 
man nature  can  never  long  rest  in  a  pessimism. 
Whensoever  the  spiritual  faculty  has,  for  any  length- 
ened period,  been  repressed  or  obscured,  it  has  always 
reasserted  itself  even  to  extravagance.  Is  it  not  the 
case  at  this  very  moment?  The  hearing  obtained  by 
Dowieism,  Christian  Science,  and  such-like,  is  an  evi- 
dence of  this,  and  a  tacit  rebuke  against  our  feeble 
Vvays  of  setting  forth  the  unsearchable  riches  of 
Christ. 

But,  above  all,  we  may  hope  much  from  the  prayer 
circles  that  are  springing  up  in  all  directions  through- 
out the  land,  with  the  avowed  object  of  waiting  upon 
God  for  a  revival  of  His  work.     Such  prayer  cannot 


AN    OUTLOOK  5 

fail,  for  God  cannot  deny  Himself,  Christ  is  more 
than  ever  the  great  necessity,  and  the  one  central  hope 
for  poor  humanity. 

There  is  some  speculation  as  to  the  form  which  such 
revival  may  take  when  it  comes.  Some  people  say  it 
will  be  mainly  ethical,  and  less  emotional  than  most 
previous  religious  movements  have  been.  Others  be- 
lieve it  will  take  the  fonn  of  a  quickened  interest  in 
social  justice,  a  great  awakening  on  the  part  of  the 
Churches  in  favour  of  the  poor,  the  unprivileged,  and 
the  oppressed.  No  doubt  there  is  truth  in  all  these 
suppositions,  but,  if  we  refer  to  history  once  more,  we 
learn  the  lesson  that  all  Christian  revivals  have  begun 
in  the  reawakening  of  devotion  to  Christ,  the  Saviour 
and  Lord.  We  may  call  this  emotion,  if  we  please,  but 
it  has  taken  precedence  of  all  ethical  enthusiasms  and 
social  readjustments ;  in  fact,  made  them  possible. 
Such  was  the  revival  of  Francis,  of  Luther,  of  Wesley, 
of  Moody. 

It  may  be  questioned  whether  ethical  endeavour, 
apart  from  faith,  has  ever  succeeded  at  all.  The  char- 
acter it  has  formed,  and  is  forming  in  our  midst  to- 
day, tends  to  be  self-conscious  and  introspective; 
whereas  morality  at  its  highest  loses  sight  of  itself  as 
its  own  object,  and  becomes  devotion  to  a  Divine  ideal. 
A  quickened  spiritual  life  in  the  Churches,  a  recov- 
ered enthusiasm,  a  new  sense  of  the  presence  of  Christ 
as  Deliverer  and  Lord,  would  set  free  grand  social 
enthusiasms,  and  supply  an  ethical  dynamic  compared 
with  which  all  others  are  feeble  indeed. 

For  this  we  need  the  power  of  the  Holy  Spirit  of 
God.  We  need  not  to  pray  for  a  second  Pentecost. 
The  Spirit  once  given  is  here  for  ever.     We  need  con- 


6  AN    OUTLOOK 

secrated  men  and  women.  Let  us  pray,  and  trust, 
and  expect.  If  we  have  not  faith  enough,  let  us  ask 
for  it;  if  we  are  not  sufficiently  in  earnest,  let  us 
humble  ourselves,  and  entreat  the  Lord  to  give  us  to 
our  Master.     Surely  He  will  hear. 


CONTENTS 


I.  What  Is  God  ?       ,        .        .        . 

II.  What  Is  Man  ?      .         .         ,        . 

III.  Personal  Communion  with  God, 

IV.  Can  God  Answer  Prayer  ? 

V.  Supposing  Christ  Were  only  a  Man, 

VI.  God's  Remedy  for  Sin, 

VII.  The  Mystery  of  Pain, 

VIII.  Christianity  and  the  Social  Order, 

IX.  The  Divine  Ideal  of  Manhood, 

X.  Christ  and  Character-Building, 

XI.  Overcoming  for  God, 

XII.  Conscience  in  Common  Life, 

XIII.  Personal  Immortality, 

XIV.  The  Doctrine  of  Divine  Love, 
XV.  Praying  in  Christ  Jesus, 

XVI.  The  Essence  of  Christianity, 

XVII.  The  Antiphony  of  Penitence, 

XVIII.  The  Dayspring,     . 

XIX,  God's  New  Year, 

XX.  The  Minor  Offence,     . 

XXI.  Vision  and  Service, 

XXII.  The  Prophet  in  Prayer, 

XXIII.  Passive  Resistance, 


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262 
275 


WHAT   IS   GOD? 

God,  who  at  sundry  times  and  in  divers  manners  spake 
in  titne  past  unto  the  fathers  by  the  prophets,  hath  in  these 
last  days  spoken  unto  us  by  His  Son. — Hebrews  i.  1-2. 

He  that  comet h  to  God  must  believe  that  He  is,  and  that 
He  is  a  rewarder  of  them  that  diligently  seek  Him. 

— Hebrews  xi,  6. 

PROFESSOR  HAECKEL,  almost  the  last  sur- 
viving exponent  of  scientific  materialism,  says 
that  God,  Freedom,  and  Immortality  are  the 
three  great  buttresses  of  superstition  which  it  must  be 
the  business  of  science  to  destroy.  Of  these  three  sub- 
jects the  first  is  overwhelmingly  the  greatest,  and  we 
,will  address  ourselves  to  the  question  "  What  is  God?  " 
The  passages  chosen  to  guide  our  meditation  not 
only  state  the  question,  but  also  the  conditions  upon 
which  an  answer  can  be  expected,  and  has  actually  been 
given ;  for  every  man  believes  in  God,  even  when  he 
denies,  as  I  shall  endeavour  to  show.  There  is  no 
quarrelling  at  the  starting-point ;  those  who  ask  the 
question,  What  is  God?  already  believe  that  He  is. 
The  difference  between  the  creeds  of  those  who  speak 
confidently  about  the  nature  of  God,  and  those  who 
speak  hesitatingly,  is  less  in  what  they  respectively  say 
than  in  what  they  do  not  say ;  it  depends  upon  what  we 
put  into  the  meaning  of  that  word  of  three  letters, 

9 


10       CITY    TEMPLE    SERMONS 

which  is  the  greatest  in  the  EngHsh  tongue.  "  He  that 
Cometh  unto  God  "  does  believe  that  He  is,  and  some 
believe  that  He  is  a  rewarder  of  them  that  diligently 
seek  Him.  Moreover,  the  highest  spiritual  experience 
rises  above  this,  in  maintaining  that  God,  who  is  never 
within  sight,  but  who  from  the  beginning  of  time  hath 
spoken  unto  men,  hath  in  the  last  days  spoken  unto  us 
by  His  Son ;  and  when  we  have  heard  and  seen  the  Son, 
the  Christ  in  whom  Christians  believe,  there  is  nothing 
more  that  we  know  or  need  to  know  in  answer  to  the 
question.  What  is  God  ? 

I  can  imagine  someone  saying  at  this  point,  "  Are 
you  quite  sure  that  we  are  all  agreed  about  the  being 
of  God ;  is  there  no  doubt  about  the  question  whether 
God  is  •  have  we  nothing  to  ask  but  the  question  what 
He  is  ?  "  My  answer  is,  Undoubtedly  I  am  right,  and 
you  yourself  are  my  witness.  There  are  at  least  three 
orders  of  mind,  which  represent  three  different  ways 
of  thinking  about  the  fundamental  questions  of  our 
being  and  our  destiny — the  scientific  mind,  the  philo- 
sophic mind,  the  religious  mind.  In  one  of  those  three 
classes  every  man  finds  a  place.  The  man  of  science 
may  not  be  conspicuously  in  evidence,  but  the  men 
trained  under  scientific  methods  are.  Those  who  have 
been  to  school  within  the  last  twenty  years  know  well 
that  it  is  impossible  to  escape  the  habit  of  mind  which 
is  the  result  of  inductive — that  is,  of  scientific — reason- 
ing. Then  there  are  the  men  of  philosophic  tempera- 
ment, who  start  by  believing  in  mind.  Whether  aught 
else  is  real  or  no,  they  believe  in  the  ]\lind  that  thinks 
the  world.  They  believe  in  their  own  mind,  they  may 
believe  in  a  Whole  Mind  greater  than  their  own,  but 
still  mind.     And   the   religious   man   would   say,   "  I 


WHATISGOD?  U 

believe  not  only  in  my  own  mind,  but  I  believe  in  a 
Mind  which  is  the  source  of  mine;  I  believe  not  only  in 
my  own  soul,  I  believe  in  the  Oversoul.  Moreover,  I 
believe  in  an  essential  relationship  between  my  soul  and 
that  Soul ;  the  Father  of  my  spirit  is  ever  speaking  unto 
me." 

It  is  often  said  that  a  three-cornered  contest  is 
going  on  between  the  representatives  of  these  three 
temperaments,  and  that  in  two  of  them  at  least  at  the 
present  time  the  antagonism  is  more  pronounced  than 
it  has  ever  been  before.  This  question  has  been  ad- 
dressed to  me  recently,  "  Is  not  the  rift  between  science 
and  religion  wider  than  it  ever  was  ?  "  Thank  God, 
no !  I  am  well  aware  that  some  of  the  exponents  of 
science  and  some  of  the  professors  of  religion  con- 
scientiously think  that  it  is ;  but  to  me,  on  the  contrary, 
the  future  is  full  of  hope,  because  of  this — that  for  the 
first  time  in  the  history  of  human  thought  science, 
philosophy,  and  religion  have  a  common  starting-point 
— the  human  mind,  viewing  itself  as  part  of  an  ordered 
whole,  or  as  one  effect  of  a  Universal  Cause.  All  three, 
through  their  exponents,  affirm  God,  if  they  affirm  at 
all.    Let  us  take  the  three  positions  seriatim. 

The  old  materialism  is  gone ;  it  is  as  dead  as  the  first 
edition  of  the  Encyclopcedia  Britannica.  To-day  men 
do  not  think  of  atoms  and  molecules  as  being  the  ulti- 
mate reality.  If  Miss  Marie  Corelli  were  going  to 
write  "The  Mighty  Atom"  over  again,  she  would 
write  it  differently,  or,  if  you  will  excuse  an  Irishism, 
she  would  not  write  it  at  all.  The  man  of  science  has 
ceased  to  speak  of  materialism  as  the  explanation  of 
life  and  mind,  although  many  are  old  enough  to  re- 
member Professor  Tyndall's  famous  dictum  about  that. 


12       CITY    TEMPLE    SERMONS 

Modern  science  speaks  of  a  Universal  Substance  which, 
if  it  be  matter,  is  also  mind,  but  may  be  neither.  To  the 
man  of  science  God,  law,  and  the  universe  are  one  and 
the  same;  to  him,  again,  the  universe  is  self-contained, 
self-explanatory,  self-acting  by  its  own  laws.  Again, 
the  man  of  science  no  longer  speaks  about  a  dead  world 
of  matter  over  against  a  living  world  of  men.  These 
are  not  two,  but  one ;  there  is  no  death,  but  only  life. 
The  distinction  between  the  organic  and  the  inorganic 
is  going,  or  gone.  Nothing  is  dead,  all  is  alive,  the 
light  from  heaven  and  the  dust  on  the  ground.  The 
Universal  Substance  is  one;  ever  in  movement.  Here 
it  is  a  sob,  there  a  song ;  here  it  is  the  mud  on  London 
streets,  there  the  men  who  walk  on  it ;  here  it  is  a 
vapour,  there  a  prayer;  yonder  a  mountain,  here  a 
Gladstone ;  but  all  the  while  the  same  Substance  in 
myriad  manifestation,  never  at  rest,  ceaselessly  acting, 
in  infinite  forms.  Did  I  say  rightly  at  the  beginning 
of  this  sermon  when  I  affirmed  that  the  man  of  science 
has  his  God  ?  The  L^niversal  Substance  is  his  God. 
He  would  say.  All  is  God,  and  God  is  all.  His  quarrel 
with  religion  consists,  not  in  what  he  says  that  the  man 
of  religion  does  not  say,  but  in  what  he  does  not  say 
that  the  man  of  religion  does  say. 

Let  me  study  the  position  of  the  philosophy  of  the 
moment.  Until  quite  recently  the  system  of  philosophy 
which  held  the  field  was  what  has  been  called  Con- 
sistent Idealism.  Do  not  be  afraid  of  the  word — it  is 
very  simple,  after  all.  It  means  no  more  than  this — 
that  every  man,  thinking  about  everything,  starts  by 
assuming  his  own  mind  and  the  validity  of  his  own 
judgment.  To  be  consistent  he  must  not  assume  any- 
body else's  mind — only  his  own.     So  that  every  one  of 


W  H  A  T    I  S    G  O  D  ?  13 

us,  looking  out  on  the  rest  of  the  world,  might  say,  "  I 
am ;  perhaps  nobody  else  is ;  it  may  be  that  my  mind 
is  the  only  mind  in  the  wide  universe  of  things ;  it  may 
be  that  outside  of  my  being  there  is  no  being;  every- 
thing that  passes  into  my  experience  comes  as  a  series 
of  mind-pictures,  passing  in  idea  before  my  mind." 
That  idealism  has  completely  broken  down.  Common 
sense  steps  in  and  declares,  though  you  cannot  prove  it, 
that  there  are  other  minds  than  yours — you  are  only 
one,  a  spark  perhaps,  of  the  Universal  Mind.  You 
can  enter  into  relations,  soul  with  soul,  with  others  of 
whose  being  you  can  have  no  reasonable  doubt.  So 
Consistent  Idealism  has  gone,  just  as  Scientific  Mater- 
ialism has  gone,  and  in  the  place  of  both  we  have  now 
the  Universal  Substance  on  the  side  of  science,  and  on 
the  side  of  philosophy  the  Universal  Mind. 

What  says  the  man  of  religion?  His  position  will 
not  take  long  to  state,  because  we  all  know  it.  Every- 
thing which  science  has  said  so  far  I  can  say,  you  can 
say.  God  is  all,  and  in  all ;  nowhere  is  He  not ;  in  every 
comer  of  the  pathless  universe  He  dwells  and  reigns. 
He  is  the  power  behind  all  things,  in  all  things ;  through 
Him  all  things  consist;  He  is  the  intimately  near, 
as  well  as  the  infinitely  far.  But  where  the  man  of 
science  stops  short  in  declaring  that  the  universe  is 
self-contained  and  self-explanatory,  the  man  of  religion 
goes  on  to  say.  The  universe  of  universes  cannot  con- 
tain my  God.  And  where  the  man  of  philosophy  would 
say,  God  is  the  Universal  Mind,  the  man  of  religion 
would  say,  God  is  the  Universal  Heart ;  and  in  the 
words  of  the  noble  psalm  our  pra5^er  is  ever  rising  thus, 
"  Search  me,  O  God,  and  know  my  heart ;  try  me,  and 
know  my  thoughts,  and  see  if  there  be  any  wicked  way 


14        CITY    TEMPLE    SERMONS 

in  me,  and  lead  me  in  the  way  that  lasteth  long."  So 
we  go  a  long  way  together,  and  that  is  why  I  think  that 
for  religion  to-morrow  will  be  a  day  of  hope;  I  am 
waiting  to  see  religion  and  Christ  rehabilitated  on  the 
side  both  of  science  and  philosophy;  I  am  waiting  to 
see  Christian  experience  vindicated,  and  the  day  of  the 
Lord  is  at  hand. 

But  someone  will  cry  out  in  expostulation,  "  Are  you 
sure  of  all  this?  I  am  not  prepared  to  go  as  far  as 
you.  If  this  is  the  experience  of  religious  minds,  it  is 
not  mine — I  would  that  it  were ;  but  I  can  find  no  trace 
on  the  field  of  history  or  in  the  field  of  present-day 
experience  of  such  a  God  as  you  name ;  the  shame,  the 
horror,  and  the  woe  of  the  world  seem  to  contradict 
your  belief  in  a  God  whose  name  and  nature  are  Love." 
Wait  a  bit;  you  have  forgotten  something — the  rela- 
tivity of  knowledge.  All  our  thought  about  the  things 
which  come  within  the  region  of  observation  is  relative ; 
the  actual  you  do  not  know,  at  any  rate  by  your  in- 
ductive methods.  The  relativity  of  knowledge  means 
that  you  can  know  nothing  within  the  wide  universe 
except  as  your  mind  permits  you  to  know  it,  and  that 
mind  operates  within  certain  arbitrary  limits  which 
intellect,  but  not  experience,  can  never  pass.  When  I 
look  up  into  the  dome  of  heaven  I  know  that  I  am  look- 
ing into  infinity ;  this  morning  the  sun  has  come 
95,000,000  of  miles  to  smile  upon  us  a  watery  smile. 
That  immensity  is  a  something  we  cannot  grasp.  But 
sweep  it  out  of  existence,  let  the  95,000,000  of  miles 
be  as  if  they  had  never  been — how  much  is  left? 
Blot  out  the  visible  universe — what  have  you  retained? 
As  much  as  there  was  before.  Now,  what  becomes  of 
the  validity  of  your  scientific  laws, — gravitation,  con- 


W  H  A  T    I  S    G  O  D  ?  15 

servation  of  energy,  and  what  not  ?  Are  they  untrue  ? 
No,  I  do  not  say  that,  but  they  are  only  relatively  true. 
You  know  that  the  actuality  is  infinity.  The  moment 
you  have  touched  that  concept  you  have  passed  it ;  but 
experience  cannot  go  where  your  mind  has  thrust  itself. 
I  do  not  say  that  your  scientific  judgments  are  wrong; 
I  say  they  are  relative,  and  you  have  to  stop  at  your 
limits. 

Here  is  a  better  illustration,  perhaps.  Look  at  these 
beautiful  stained  glass  windows  all  the  way  round  this 
church ;  as  we  sit  worshipping  we  can  enjoy  them. 
But  suppose  that  in  the  audience  is  a  man  who  is  colour- 
blind; to  that  man  the  stained  window  below  the 
gallery,  and  the  frosted  glass  window  above,  are,  save 
perhaps  in  outline,  just  the  same.  Now,  what  is 
wrong — the  window  or  his  perception  of  it?  There  is 
something  short  in  his  brain,  he  cannot  see  things  as 
we  see  them ;  but  perhaps  even  we  cannot  see  them  as 
they  really  are ;  there  is  a  reality  outside  which  makes 
us  see  colour  and  form,  but  perhaps  there  is  more  to  see 
than  any  of  us  knows.  I  do  not  deny  the  reality ;  what 
I  assert  is  the  limit  of  our  perception.  The  organist 
leads  our  devotions  very  beautifully  on  the  great  organ, 
we  feel  the  hand  of  a  master  on  the  instrument.  As  a 
matter  of  fact,  the  hand  of  the  master  is  on  us ;  he  sets 
the  air  vibrating,  and  when  the  vibrations  reach  our 
brain,  we  cannot  explain  the  mystery,  but  we  hear  the 
harmony.  If  there  were  present  a  man  who  is  not 
deaf,  but  who  has  no  ear  for  music,  what  would  he 
think  about  it  all?  His  experience  would  be  widely 
different  from  ours;  are  we  to  argue,  therefore,  that 
there  was  no  organ?  No.  No  harmony,  then?  No; 
but  that  the  man  was  a  faculty  short,  and  the  reality 


16       CITY    TEMPLE    SERMONS 

could  not  make  itself  known  to  him.  It  is  related  of 
Mr.  Spurgeon,  who,  as  is  well  known,  had  no  ear  for 
music,  that  on  one  occasion  he  was  sitting  with  a  friend 
listening  to  an  orchestra  playing  a  beautiful  symphony, 
and  his  friend  said  to  him,  *'  Surely,  Mr.  Spurgeon, 
you  enjoy  it?"  "No,"  said  the  great  preacher,  "I 
don't."  "  But,"  he  said,  "  it  is  exquisite."  "  Well," 
was  the  reply,  "  if  every  player  in  that  orchestra  had 
his  instrument  tuned  to  a  different  key  and  went  on 
playing  the  s)'mphony,  how  would  you  feel  ?  "  His 
friend  said,  "  Indescribable."  "  Well,"  said  Mr.  Spur- 
geon, "  that  is  how  I  feel  now."  What  shall  we  argue 
from  that?  That  the  limit  on  one  side  of  Mr.  Spur- 
geon's  perception  came  sooner  than  in  the  case  of  his 
friend ;  it  does  not  argue  that  there  was  no  symphony 
to  hear,  it  argues  that  his  knowledge  of  what  he  did 
hear  was  only  relative  to  the  whole.  That  is  so  with 
all  knowledge.  We  know  the  realities  of  infinity  and 
eternity;  in  our  practical  acquaintance  we  stop  short 
with  the  symbols  of  time. 

Then,  you  may  say.  What  are  you  doing  now  ?  Are 
you  going  to  destroy  everything  we  know?  Is  there 
anything  of  which  we  can  be  sure?  any  point  where 
we  touch  the  reality?  Yes,  personality  is  the  ultimate 
reality.  The  only  thing  in  the  wide  universe  of  which 
you  can  be  sure  is  soul.  Things  may  not  be  what  they 
seem,  but  when  you  have  spoken  with  your  friend  face 
to  face  you  have  spoken  with  a  reality  which  is  not 
other  and  cannot  be  other  than  it  seems  to  you.  Com- 
munion of  soul  is  the  only  real  communion.  "  Stop !  " 
you  say,  "that  is  an  assumption."  Is  it?  You  have 
made  it  already ;  your  man  of  science  has  made  it.  The 
validity  of  his  judgments  depends  upon  his  assumption 


WHATISGOD?  11 

of  himself ;  unless  he  has  made  that  assumption,  he  can 
get  nowhither.  Is  it  an  assumption?  Why,  all  your 
doings  in  life  are  based  upon  it;  you  would  not  have 
been  here  but  for  that  relationship  between  reality  and 
reality,  soul  and  soul,  which  you  know  to  be  human 
society.  Can  we  get  farther?  Is  there  a  Soul  of 
souls — "  the  Oversoul,"  as  Emerson  would  have  called 
it?  Yes,  says  the  highest  experience  the  v/orld  has 
ever  known.  An  assumption?  Of  course;  an  as- 
sumption borne  out  by  experience  like  yours.  You 
have  no  right  to  assume  me  any  more  than  I  have  a 
right  to  assume  God,  and  if  you  are  certain  of  the  com- 
munion between  my  soul  and  yours,  I  am  no  less  certain 
of  the  communion  between  my  soul  and  His.  God  is 
all  and  in  all.  Soul  of  our  soul.  Father  of  our  spirits. 
The  highest  experience  the  world  has  ever  known  says 
that,  and  that  experience  is  constant.  If  in  any  century 
we  could  prove  it  gone,  my  theme  would  have  been  very 
differently  phrased.  But  when  humanity  has  been  at 
its  noblest,  humanity  has  been  holding  on  to  the  sense 
of  intercourse  with  things  unseen  and  eternal,  with 
Soul,  which  is  God. 

Here  some  may  ask  me  for  evidence.  What  is  my 
evidence?  Yourself.  You  challenge  me  about  Him 
whose  ways  are  in  the  sea,  you  remind  me  of  the  dread- 
fulness  of  life,  the  tragedies  of  every  day  and  hour; 
you  come  pouring  in  from  the  Stock  Exchange,  and 
Fleet  Street,  and  the  Strand,  and  you  tell  me  you  have 
seen  sights  which  have  stirred  your  heart,  made  it  beat 
fast  with  pity,  and  caused  you  to  say,  "  Poor  Hu- 
manity !  Where  is  the  hope,  after  all  ?  Is  God  blind 
and  deaf  and  dumb  ?  "  You  think  about  those  thirty 
thousand  people  swept  into  eternity  amidst  dreadiul 


18       CITY    TEMPLE    SERMONS 

torture  in  the  West  Indies  the  other  day,  and  you  say, 
"  Is  this  the  work  of  a  father?  "  I  cannot  stop  to  in- 
vestigate that  problem  now,  we  will  come  to  it  in  time ; 
here  is  the  answer  for  the  moment.  You  are  as  much 
a  product  of  the  Universal  Substance  as  is  Mont  Pelee; 
perhaps  you  are  more  explanatory  of  what  the  Uni- 
versal Substance  is.  Do  you  pity?  Then,  if  the  Uni- 
versal cannot,  Nature  in  one  of  her  moods  has  produced 
something  nobler  than  herself,  and  that  is  you.  Is  the 
Universal  Substance  conscious,  is  it  moral?  does  it 
know  and  feel  and  care?  can  I  enter  into  relationship 
with  it?  As  soon  as  experience  has  said  Yes,  then  I  have 
discovered  God  to  be  a  rewarder  of  them  that  diligently 
seek  Him,  and  highest  of  all.  I  do  not  wait  upon  your 
experience  only ;  I  look  back  upon  the  field  of  history, 
and  I  ask,  Whence  came  that  idea  of  God  we  are  now 
holding  before  each  other's  mind?  My  gaze  rests  on 
one  day  and  on  one  Being;  that  day  1900  years  ago, 
when  Jesus  of  Nazareth  preached  on  the  hillsides  of 
Galilee,  and  had  compassion  upon  the  people  that  were 
scattered  as  sheep  with  no  shepherd ;  and  there  I  see 
whence  came  that  idea  of  God  which  is  the  only  one 
with  which  human  nature  will  ever  be  satisfied  again. 
I  listen  to  the  voice  in  the  upper  room,  I  hear  the 
questioning  of  Philip,  "  Lord,  show  us  the  Father,  and 
we  shall  be  satisfied,"  and  I  hear  the  voice  Divine,  as 
He  answers,  "  Have  I  been  so  long  time  with  you,  and 
yet  hast  thou  not  known  Me?  He  that  hath  seen  Me 
hath  seen  the  Father."  When  we  have  seen  Jesus  we 
may  have  many  things  to  learn  concerning  the  fathom- 
less purposes  of  God,  but  of  His  nature  we  need  to 
learn  nothing  at  all — we  know  it.  At  the  heart  of  the 
universe  reigns  One  with  the  heart  of  a  little  child. 


i 


WHATISGOD?  19 

Do  not  stop  to  perplex  yourself  with  questions  about 
the  Trinity.  If  God  be  like  Jesus,  if  Jesus  can  pledge 
God,  humanity  has  nothing  more  to  fear.  If  Jesus 
had  died  cursing  and  raving  against  the  faith  He  had 
preached;  if  He  had  died  protesting  that  the  Father 
had  failed  Him ;  if  He  had  died  calling  down  impre- 
cations upon  His  murderers,  I  should  have  had  no 
Gospel  to  preach.  But  it  was  not  so ;  He  died  saying, 
"Father,  forgive  them,  for  they  know  not  what  they  do. 
Into  Thy  hands  I  commend  My  spirit." 

Jesus  is  the  Soul  of  the  universe.  He  is  the  Self  of 
our  selves,  and  the  Life  of  our  lives.  There  may  be  a 
universe  of  universes  beyond  with  which  we  have  noth- 
ing to  do,  but  in  the  universe  with  which  we  have  to  do 
the  ultimate  is  Jesus.  Jesus  came  suffering.  If  He 
had  come  in  great  glory,  I  would  have  had  no  Gospel 
to  preach  to-day.  He  was  born  in  a  stable,  cradled  in  a 
manger,  lived  a  suffering  life,  and  died  a  shameful  death. 

"  O  God,  O  kinsman  loved,  but  not  enough  ! 
O  Man,  with  eyes  majestic  after  death, 
Whose  feet  have  toiled  along  our  pathways  rough, 
Whose  lips  drawn  human  breath  !  " 

The  Cross  of  Calvary  is  the  key  to  creation.  We  see 
God  plainest  in  the  pathos  of  life ;  everything  noble 
rises  there.  Here  we  come  near  to  the  heart  of  things ; 
here  can  experience  rest  and  be  satisfied ;  and  we  may 
say  with  the  Quaker  poet  of  America : 

"  A  marvel  seems  the  universe, 

A  miracle  our  life  and  death, 
A  mystery  which  I  cannot  pierce, 

Around,  above,  beneath. 
Now  my  spirit  sighs  for  home. 

And  longs  for  light  whereby  to  see. 
And  like  a  weary  child  has  come, 

O,  Father,  unto  Thee." 


II 

WHAT    IS    MAN? 

What  is  man,  that  thou  art  inindfiil  of  him  ? 
And  the  son  of  man,  that  thou  visit  est  him  r 
For  thou  hast  jftade  him  but  little  lower  than  God, 
And  crownest  /lif/i  ivith  glory  and  honour. 

— Psalm  via.  4-j.  R.   V. 
All  have  sinned  afid  come  short  of  the  glory  of  God. 

— Rom.  Hi.  2 J. 

WE  have  seen  that  the  first  of  all  questions  is 
What  is  God  ?  When  once  a  man  has  settled 
this  question  for  himself  he  is  in  possession 
of  a  philosophy  of  life  and  an  imperative  of  conduct. 
The  question,  you  observe,  i$  not  whether  God  is ;  that 
is  beyond  discussion.  I  have  tried  to  show  that  every 
man  believes  in  God  even  when  he  says  he  does  not; 
but  all  men  do  not  believe  in  the  same  view  of  the 
aiature  of  God.  Hence  it  is  that  upon  a  man's  doctrine 
of  God  depends  his  view  of  himself  and  of  the  destiny 
of  humanity  as  a  whole.  If  he  thinks  meanly  of  the 
one,  he  thinks  meanly  of  the  other ;  if  he  thinks  nobly 
of  the  one,  he  thinks  nobly  of  the  other ;  and  when  once 
he  has  come  to  affirm  the  Christian  view  of  the  nature 
of  God — that  He  is  Father,  Saviour,  Redeemer,  Friend 
— then,  and  not  till  then,  are  we  in  a  position  to  con- 
sider hopefully  the  question,  What  is  man  ? 

To  that  question  many  answers  of  a  conflicting 
nature  have  been  g'iven,  and  are  being-  given  in  the 
world  of  thought  and  action.     Suppose  I  put  the  ques- 

20 


WHATISMAN?  21 

tion  to  some  medical  student,  "  Can  you,  sir,  tell  me 
what  is  man  ?  "  and  it  is  possible  he  may  answer  thus, 
**  Man  is  a  highly  developed  vertebrate,  a  more  or  less 
clever  and  successful  ape,  who  has  worsted  his  com- 
petitors in  the  struggle  for  existence,  and  stands  as 
conqueror  at  the  head  of  things."  I  may  put  the  ques- 
tion to  yonder  pessimistic  philosopher,  whose  pity  for 
humanity  lacks  nothing  of  our  own,  but  whose  confi- 
dence in  the  destiny  of  humanity  is  the  accompaniment 
of  his  answer  to  this  question,  What  is  man  ?  "I  ask 
you,  sir,  what  have  you  to  say  in  answer  to  the 
Psalmist  ? "  Listen  to  him.  "  Man  is  a  vapour,  a 
breath  that  passeth  away;  man  is  as  a  bubble  upon 
the  wave  of  causation,  here  to-day,  gone  to-morrow, 
gone  for  ever.  Man  is  but  one  of  nature's  many  ex- 
periments, and  is  to  make  way  by-and-bye  for  another 
and  perhaps  a  greater.  Man  has  no  destiny  beyond 
that  which  he  pictures  to  himself  in  his  own  fancy.  In 
the  words  of  that  immortal  pessimist,  Omar  Khayyam : 

"The  Worldly  Hope  men  set  their  Hearts  upcn 
Turns  ashes — or  it  prospers  ;  and  anon. 

Like  Snow  upon  the  Desert's  dusty  face, 
Lighting  a  little  hour  or  two — is  gone." 

I  will  put  the  question  to  this  busy  City  man,  "What 
have  you  to  say  in  answer  to  the  Psalmist's  question ; 
what  would  you  say  of  yourself?  "  The  answer  might 
be,  "  I  do  not  know ;  it  takes  me  all  my  time  to  live ;  my 
horizon  is  narrow  and  contracted,  and  when  I  think  I 
get  no  nearer  to  the  solution  of  the  great  mystery." 

"  Art  is  long,  and  Time  is  fleeting, 

And  our  hearts,  though  stout  and  brave. 
Still,  like  muffled  drums,  are  beating 
Funeral  marches  to  the  grave." 


22        CITY    TEMPLE    SERMONS 

Now,  over  against  those  answers  set  the  words  of 
the  Psalmist,  and  with  these  ringing  in  our  ears  let  us 
address  ourselves  anew  to  the  statement  of  our  position 
in  the  great  order  of  the  universe. 

"  IV/ien  I  co7isider  thy  heavens,  the  work  of  thy  fingers. 
The  moon  atid  the  stars,  which  thou  hast  ordained  ; 
What  is  man,  that  thou  art  nmidful  of  him  ? 
And  the  son  of  man,  that  thou  visitest  him  ? 
For  thou  hast  jnade  him  but  little  lower  than  God, 
And  crownest  him  with  glory  attd  honour." 

There,  on  that  statement  of  experience,  I  pin  my 
faith.  When  we  have  answered  the  question  What  is 
God?  there  is  no  room  for  pessimism  in  the  statement 
of  the  question  What  is  man  ?  I  therefore  ask  you  to 
consider  this  answer  of  the  Psalmist  under  the  three 
following  divisions  :  ( i )  Man  is  that  part  of  the  great 
scheme  of  things  which  is  the  best  explanation  of  the 
whole.  (2)  He  has  some  power  of  self-direction  and 
self-control,  and  therefore  of  moral  responsibility.  He 
is  a  universe  within  a  universe.  (3)  The  destiny  of 
humanity  is  bound  up  with  that  of  Jesus  Christ. 

I.  Man  is  that  expression,  that  part  of  the  great 
scheme  of  things  which  is  the  best  explanation  of  the 
whole.  As  we  have  said  before,  I  see  no  objection  to 
the  declaration  that  from  one  point  of  view  God  and 
Law  and  the  Universe  are  one.  Even  to  the  Christian, 
God,  self-limited,  is  the  Universe.  When  we  are  trying 
to  get  to  the  secret  of  the  Universe  we  are  really  striv- 
ing after  the  explanation  of  the  nature  of  God.  Those 
two  questions  are  one  and  the  same.  So,  my  friend, 
the  medical  student,  when  you  go  back  to  your  labora- 
tory, no  matter  what  you  may  call  the  work  in  which 
you  are  engaged,  it  is  nothing  more  nor  less  than  this ; 


WHATISMAN?  23 

In  trying  to  find  out  the  secret  of  phenomena,  you  are 
trying  to  discover  the  nature  of  God.  Now,  where 
can  we  look  for  that?  I  answer,  in  the  microcosm  of 
the  great  macrocosm  of  existence.  You  must  read  man 
to  find  out  what  God  is.  I  am  not  afraid  of  anthro- 
pomorphism, provided  you  keep  your  hand  firmly  upon 
it.  A  French  writer  once  sarcastically  said,  "  In  the 
beginning  God  created  man  in  His  own  image,  and 
ever  since  then  man  has  been  returning  the  compliment 
by  making  God  in  his."  What  else  are  we  to  do  ?  You 
must  read  God  by  the  highest  of  that  whole  which 
God  has  produced — humanity;  and  by  that  I  do  not 
mean  to  say  you  must  read  God  by  what  you  are, 
but  by  what  you  have  been  made  capable  of  seeing — 
and  that  is  another  thing.  So,  in  spite  of  the  evil,  woe, 
sin,  and  imperfection  of  humanity,  the  great  witness 
in  the  world  for  the  nature  of  God  is  that  which  hu- 
manity has  been  made  capable  of  seeing  and  being. 

Once  in  the  field  of  history  our  eyes  have  seen  and 
our  hands  have  handled  the  word  of  life.  Humanity 
has  not  been  kept  in  the  dark  as  to  what  it  is  intended 
to  be.  We  have  looked  once,  and  seen,  and  to-day  all 
men,  in  this  country,  at  any  rate,  whether  they  are 
Christian  or  Pagan,  declare  that  in  Jesus  Christ  we 
have  seen  that  attainment  of  human  nature  which  is 
worthy  to  be  God,  whether  it  is  or  not. 

*'  Truth  is  within  ourselves  ; 
It  takes  no  rise  from  outward  things, 
Whate'er  we  may  believe." 

Here  I  will  hazard  a  proposition — that  no  man  ever 
yet  reasoned  out  his  position  in  regard  to  truth,  and 
especially  theological  truth.     You  never  yet  attained 


24        CITY    TEMPLE    SERMONS 

to  truth  by  a  process  of  ratiocination ;  you  have  simply 
seen  it,  and  that  is  all ;  and  every  wise  man,  no  matter 
hov/  wise  he  may  be,  does  just  that.  He  sees  a  thing, 
and  then  he  sets  to  work  to  find  out  how  he  saw  it. 
Once,  on  the  field  of  history,  we  have  seen  humanity 
at  its  best;  and  for  nineteen  hundred  years  we  have 
been  trying  to  find  out  how  to  attain  to  an  ideal  for 
ourselves  which  has  already  been  manifested  in  his- 
tory. We  know  now  what  man  is,  and  it  has  been  well 
said,  "  An  honest  man  is  the  noblest  work  of  God." 
Shall  I  say  a  holy  man  ?  In  other  words,  the  nearest 
approach  you  can  find  to  the  ideal  of  Jesus  Christ — ■ 
that  is,  the  highest  declaration  of  the  nature  of  the 
Divine  that  we  have  ever  had;  and  it  is  that  which 
entitles  us  to  call  God  Father.  Burns  said,  in  words 
which  are  as  much  English  as  Scotch  now : 

"A  king  can  mak'  a  belted  knight. 
A  marquis,  duke,  an'  a'  that ; 
But  an  honest  man's  abune  his  might — 
Gude  faith,  he  maunna  fa'  that ! 

"  For  a'  that,  an'  a*  that, 
Our  toils  obscure,  an'  a'  that, 
The  rank  is  but  the  guinea  stamp  » 
The  man's  the  gowd  for  a'  that." 

When  you  have  attained  to  personality,  when  you 
have  discovered  a  man  soul  to  soul,  heart  to  heart, 
mind  to  mind,  you  have  discovered  the  ultimate  reality 
of  the  Universe.  For  God,  who  is  the  Father  of  our 
spirits,  is  not  less  than  personal ;  He  is  our  Father,  our 
Friend,  and  no  man  can  come  unto  the  Father  but  by 
looking  unto  the  Christ,  who  has  revealed  what  the 
Father  is. 


,W  H  A  T    I  S    M  A  N  ?  25 

There  arises  in  our  mind  a  claim  upon  the  Father- 
hood of  God  consequent  upon  the  discovery  that  we 
can  enter  into  relations  with  Him.  I  ask  young  men 
especially,  Have  you  ever  felt  upon  you  the  almost  ir- 
resistible impulse  to  utter  yourself  to  the  Unseen — to 
know,  to  pray,  to  serve  that  nobler  than  yourself,  that 
once  you  have  seen  in  Christ  and  now  associate  with 
God?  Well,  when  you  have  done  that  you  have  made 
a  claim  upon  the  Unseen  which  is  an  affirmation  of 
your  eternal  citizenship. 

"  Life  is  real,  life  is  earnest, 

And  the  grave  is  not  its  goal, 

Dust  thou  art,  to  dust  returnest, 

Was  not  spoken  of  the  soul." 

If  you  can  pray  to  God,  if  God  has  ever  spoken  to 
you,  you  have  claimed  something  greater  than  time :  the 
eternity  of  God  presumes  the  immortality  of  man. 

"  How  poor,  how  rich,  how  abject,  how  august. 
How  complicate,  how  wonderful  is  man  !  " 

The  Psalmist  was  right  when  he  said,  "  A  little  lower 
than  God,  crowned  with  glory  and  honour,"  fitted  for 
a  greater  sphere  of  activity  than  earth  can  ever  pre- 
sent. Man  was  made  to  reign  with  God  eternally  in 
the  heavens. 

"  When  I  consider  thy  heavens,  the  work  of  thy  fingers. 
The  moon  attcl  the  stars,  which  thou  hast  ordained  ; 
What  is  man,  that  thou  art  mindful  of  him. 
And  the  son  of  tnati,  that  thou  visitest  him  ?  '• 

Man  is  Thy  child,  my  Father!  and  w^e  shall  seek 
Thee  in  the  city  which  hath  foundations  whose  builder 
and  maker  is  God. 


26        CITY    TEMPLE    SERMONS 

II.  We  have  some  power  of  self-direction  and  self- 
control.  The  latest  cult  of  the  hour,  which,  after  all,  is 
a  very  old  one,  is  that  none  of  us  can  help  being  what 
we  are;  that  if  we  have  made  mistakes  in  life,  we  are 
to  be  pitied  rather  than  blamed ;  that  in  point  of  fact 
heredity  and  environment  will  account  for  everything; 
that  far  back  in  the  mysterious  past,  all  that  has  come 
to  you,  and  all  that  you  are,  was  already  foreordained. 
I  will  admit  that  there  is  very  little  room  that  I  can 
find  for  escape  from  determinism,  if  we  stick  to  logic; 
so,  therefore,  I  should  say  that  if  this  man  is  bad  and 
that  man  is  good,  logically  we  cannot  praise  the  good 
and  we  cannot  blame  the  bad.  But  there  are  some 
things  higher  than  logic.  The  love  of  children,  friends, 
home,  the  most  illogical  thing  imaginable — what  would 
life  be  without  it?  When  we  say  efifect  must  invariably 
follow  cause,  and  for  every  effect  there  is  an  antecedent 
cause,  there  is  a  question  v\hich  philosophy  cannot  an- 
swer— why  should  any  effect  follow  any  cause?  I 
take  up  this  hymn-book,  and  I  choose  to  drop  it.  You 
say  it  will  fall  and  hit  the  floor  for  certain.  A  man  of 
science  might  be  more  careful,  and  say,  "  Probably  it 
will  fall,  for  books  dropped  so  have  fallen  so  often  that 
by  an  observable  number  of  sequences  we  have  deduced 
a  law,  and  we  call  it  gravitation."  The  effect  of  the 
letting  go  probably  will  be  that  the  book  will  fall.  Why 
should  that  effect  follow  that  cause?  We  are  back  on 
the  old  mystery.  We  are  on  the  borderland  again  of 
the  question  of  the  relative  nature  of  the  data  on  which 
all  the  conclusions  about  our  life  and  history  are 
based. 

So  we  go  back  from  the  consideration  of  these  curi- 
ous and  unprofitable  questions  to  the  simple  experience 


WHAT    IS    MAN  ?  27 

of  simple  men.  You  know  perfectly  well,  and  no  onel 
will  ever  reason  you  out  of  it,  that  if  you  did  a  mean  ■ 
thing  yesterday,  and  conscience  tells  you  about  it  to- 
day, you  are  being  reminded  that  you  need  not  have 
done  it,  and  that  you  are  a  guilty  man.  We  will  go 
farther  than  that,  and  say  that  if  our  responsibility 
for  sin — there !  the  word  has  got  in ;  it  is  not  only  the 
theologian's  word,  it  is  a  word  of  the  newspaper  and 
the  fireside,  and  of  the  business  house,  and  every  place 
where  men  meet  and  serve.  Our  responsibility  for  sin, 
I  was  going  to  say,  may  be  less  than  we  think,  but  you 
can  never  explain  it  away  altogether.  Recently  we 
were  all  agitated  in  common  with  the  rest  of  England 
when  we  heard  of  a  certain  case  in  which  a  mother  in 
high  station  had  ill-treated  her  little  child.  London 
rang  with  protests ;  we  said,  "  There  is  evidently  one 
law  for  the  rich  and  another  for  the  poor;  this  woman 
should  have  been  punished  more  than  she  was,  and  the 
judge  was  unfair."  We  may  have  been  right,  or 
we  may  have  been  wrong,  about  the  case  of  little  Con- 
nie Penruddock,  but  there  is  no  mistake  about  the  fact 
that  the  community,  one  and  all,  without  reasoning  on 
the  question,  at  once  jumped  to  the  conclusion  that 
both  mother  and  judge  were  to  blame;  and  in  so 
doing  we  have  presumed  responsibility  to  some- 
one or  to  some  great  thing  for  what  we  are 'and  what 
we  do. 

"  Here !  "  says  a  man,  "  don't  go  too  far ;  you  little 
know  how  I  have  been  fighting  this  week,  and  how 
I  have  been  beaten  in  spite  of  myself.  You  could  not 
despise  me  more  than  I  despise  myself,  but  my  moral 
weakness  is  such  that  I  never  can  hope  to  gain  a 
victory  over  the  man  that  now  is.    Made  in  the  image 


28        CITY    TEMPLE    SERMONS 

of  God,  indeed;  more  likely  I  have  been  made  in  the 
image  of  the  devil !  " 

You  are  not  the  first  who  has  said  this.  We  will  go 
back  to  the  New  Testament,  and  to  that  wise  man  who 
said,  "  Who  shall  deliver  me  from  the  body  of  this 
death  ?  The  thing  I  would,  I  do  not ;  the  thing  I  would 
not,  that  do  I."  Now  emerges  that  huge  problem, 
not  merely  of  responsibility,  but  of  escape  from  things 
we  are  prone  to  do — the  problem  of  sin.  It  is  not  only 
a  problem  for  preachers ;  it  is  a  problem  for  every  man. 
The  question  of  responsibility  comes  up — to  whom 
shall  we  flee  except  to  Him  who  is  the  Father  of  our 
spirits,  and  to  that  unnameable  right  which  every  one  of 
us  feels  pleads  within  his  heart  when  he  gives  way  to 
wrong.  Here  rises  the  question,  to  which  there  is 
only  one  answer,  and  that  answer  is  the  Gospel  of 
Jesus  Christ.  Speaking  plain  words  to  plain  men,  let 
me  say  this  :  Your  sense  of  sin  already  exists,  whether 
you  have  a  sense  of  God  or  not.  Here  is  a  curious 
thing — a  man  lay  awake  last  night  because  of  one 
guilty  fact  in  his  existence  he  would  be  glad  to  get  rid 
of.  It  is  not  God  he  has  been  thinking  of,  nor  God  he 
fears ;  it  is  that  law  of  righteousness  which  will  not  be 
gainsaid,  and  which  is  ever  speaking  in  his  poor  per- 
turbed human  heart.  Yes,  the  law  of  sin  is  a  powerful 
fact  in  humanity.  "  All  have  sinned  and  come  short  of 
the  glory  of  God."  Do  not  talk  about  a  fall  in  the  far 
past ;  men  can  wrangle  forever  about  that,  and  get  no 
nearer  to  the  facts.  Speak  about  this,  which  you  know 
to  be  the  truth,  that,  whether  any  m.an  besides  your- 
self has  ever  fallen  or  not,  you  have  fallen. 

III.  Now  we  come  to  our  third  point,  which  as  briefly 
as  may  be  is  this :    The  destiny  of  men  is,  whether  they 


W  H  A  T    I  S    M  A  N  ?  29 

know  it  or  not,  bound  up  with  that  of  Jesus  Christ. 
Only  once  have  we  seen  anyone  who  could  be  termed 
sinless ;  and  the  challenge  which  was  given  to  the  world 
nineteen  hundred  years  ago,  when  Christ  was  help- 
less in  the  hands  of  His  accusers,  to  the  accusers  them- 
selves, "  Which  of  you  convinceth  Me  of  sin  ?  "  is  the 
world's  hope  at  this  moment.  I  state  a  proposition 
which  cannot  be  proved — nothing  worth  proving  can 
be  proven ;  and  it  matters  very  little — it  is  this :  Sin- 
lessness  and  Deity  involve  each  other;  suffering  and 
humanity  involve  each  other.  When  we  have  stated  the 
perfect  Man,  we  have  declared  a  suffering  Saviour; 
when  we  have  spoken  about  a  suffering  Saviour,  we 
have  declared  incarnate  God,  and,  as  has  been  beauti- 
fully said,  "  God  became  man  that  man  might  become 
God."  "  He  was  made  sin  for  us  who  knew  no  sin 
that  we  might  become  the  righteousness  of  God  in 
Him."  If  there  never  had  been  a  Jesus  Christ  humanity 
would  have  been  crying  out  for  Him  to-day,  or  for 
one  such  as  He,  to  do  the  work  He  claims  to  do.  We 
cannot  rise  of  ourselves  from  that  slough  in  which  we 
are,  however  we  got  there.  Sin  is  intractable,  the  one 
problem  for  which  no  parliament  is  sufficient,  and 
with  which  no  human  wisdom  can  cope.  Hear  it,  as 
the  Master  preached  it,  as  of  old,  the  only  One  who 
ever  declared  Himself  able  to  loose  the  bands  and  let 
us  go  free.  If  Jesus  Christ  can  be  proved  to  have  been 
no  Saviour,  and  to  have  had  no  more  right  to  speak  in 
the  name  of  God  than  the  sinful  man  who  addresses 
you,  then  it  is  worse  for  humanity  than  if  He  had 
never  come  at  all;  for  until  the  Dayspring  from  on 
high  men  were  looking  hopefully  forward  for  someone 
to  come,  something  from  out  the  mystery  to  save; 


so        CITY    TEMPLE    SERMONS 

and  when  Jesus  came  they  thought  they  had  found 
Him,  and  for  nineteen  hundred  years  we  have  been 
preaching  the  sinless  One,  by  the  Story  of  the  Cross, 
as  the  One  who  is  mighty  to  save.  If  that  Gospel  were 
a  lie,  better  there  had  never  been  a  Jesus ;  it  is  worse 
than  if  there  had  been  no  Gospel  to  proclaim.  When 
we  claim  that  the  Christ  is  able  to  save,  we  look  beyond 
the  immediate  moment,  back  into  human  history,  and 
we  hear  men  say,  "  He  has  shown  Himself  able  to 
keep."  Is  the  Christ,  who  is  humanity,  the  head  and 
the  representative  of  the  best  in  humanity,  the  Christ 
who  is  our  hope,  reigning  at  the  heart  of  things  or 
not  ?  If  He  is,  and  this  is  His  world,  well  it  is  for  you 
and  me !  "  What  is  man,  that  thou  art  mindful  of  him? 
and  the  son  of  man,  that  thou  visitest  him?  Thou  hast 
made  him  but  little  lower  than  God."  Taking  hold 
of  Christ,  he  has  taken  hold  of  God,  and,  though  all 
have  sinned  and  come  short  of  His  glory,  we  reign 
through  the  merit  of  the  sinless  One  to  all  eternity. 

Henry  Drummond  on  one  occasion  was  crossing  the 
Atlantic,  and  on  the  deck  of  the  vessel  on  which  he 
was  sailing  a  number  of  passengers  had  gathered  to 
sing  hymns,  as  they  often  do,  and  the  hymn  chosen  on 
that  evening  happened  to  be  "  Jesus,  Lover  of  My 
Soul."  As  one  man  sang,  another  listened  to  him  with 
considerable  interest,  and  at  the  close  said : 

"  I  feel  I  have  heard  your  voice  before ;  can  you  tell 
me  where  it  was?  "  "  No,"  said  the  singer,  "  but  the 
singing  of  this  hymn  recalls  to  me  an  interesting  event 
in  my  life.  I  was  a  soldier  in  the  Confederate  Army 
in  the  great  Civil  War.  I  was  on  outpost  duty  one 
night  in  a  lonely  place.  It  was  reported  that  the  enemy 
were  in  a  wood  near  by.    I  knew  my  life  was  in  great 


WHATISMAN?  81 

danger.  To  keep  up  my  spirits,  I  sang-  this  hymn,  and 
when  I  came  to  the  hne  '  Cover  my  defenceless  head 
with  the  shadow  of  Thy  wing,'  it  seemed  as  if  all  my 
fears  passed  away,  and  I  stood  for  the  rest  of  the  night 
as  firm  and  fearless  as  though  it  were  daylight.  I  felt 
as  if  my  prayer  had  been  answered  somehow." 
"  Now,"  said  the  other,  "  you  listen  to  my  story.  I 
was  an  officer  in  the  Northern  Army,  and  that  night 
I  was  scouting  in  the  wood  you  mention.  That  was 
where  I  heard  your  voice,  and  as  you  sang  '  Jesus, 
Lover  of  my  Soul,'  we  were  drawing  near,  not  know- 
ing what  you  sang.  When  I  and  my  men  came  within 
ear-shot  you  had  just  reached  the  words,  which  you 
sang  out  louder  than  the  rest : 

"  '  Cover  my  defenceless  head 

With  the  shadow  of  Thy  wing,'" 

and  at  that  moment  we  had  you  covered  with  the  muz- 
zles of  a  dozen  rifles.  My  men  were  just  waiting  for 
the  word  to  send  you  into  eternity,  but  when  you 
sang  that  line,  I  turned  to  them  and  said,  '  Rifles  down ; 
let  us  go  back  to  camp.'  " 

Here  they  met,  on  the  deck  of  a  ship  in  mid-ocean, 
to  tell  about  the  Christ  that  had  governed  the  act  of 
the  one  and  saved  the  life  of  the  other.  It  is  a  simple 
story,  but  it  brings  me  to  the  point  where  I  would 
bring  every  man  if  I  could.  You  do  not  feel  yourself 
able  for  your  own  life  and  destiny  to  say  with  the 
soldier : 

"  Thou,  O  Christ,  art  all  I  want, 
More  than  all  in  Thee  I  find, 
Raise  the  fallen,  cheer  the  faint, 
Heal  the  sick,  and  lead  the  blind." 


32        CITY    TEMPLE    SERMONS 

You  can  venture  your  all  upon  that  Man  who  leads 
on  before.  Still  I  see  Him  leading  there!  At  the 
Cross  of  Calvary  there  is  life  and  hope  for  humanity. 
What  is  man?  August  and  abject !  What  is  man?  A 
child  of  God,  a  child  of  shame.  What  is  man?  A 
brother  of  Christ,  the  redeemed  of  the  Cross.  We  need 
no  more. 

"  Just  and  holy  is  Thy  name, 
I  am  all  unrighteousness. 
False  and  full  of  sin  I  am, 
Thou  art  full  of  truth  and  grace." 


Ill 

PERSONAL  COMMUNION  WITH  GOD 

And  the  Lord  spake  unto  Moses  face  to  face,  as  a  man 
speaketh  unto  his  friend. — Exodus  xxxiii.  ii. 

IN  this  narrative  of  old  time,  and  particularly  in  the 
sentence  which  forms  our  text,  there  is  something 
which  is  puzzling  to  the  practical  Englishman  and 
to  the  twentieth-century  mind.  We  are  nowadays  so 
literal  and  exact  in  our  statement  of  truth,  and  so  little 
tolerant  of  the  too  liberal  use  of  metaphor  and  symbol, 
that  we  are  apt  to  hesitate  before  expressions  of  spirit- 
ual experience  which  are  conveyed  in  a  mental  and 
spiritual  dialect  different  from  our  own.  More- 
over, we  are  impatient  of  views  of  the  Divine  nature 
which  would  tend  to  localise,  humanise,  or  limit  God, 
So  far  is  this  the  case  that  even  the  crude  and  exag- 
gerated statement  of  the  Godhead  of  Jesus  becomes  a 
serious  obstacle  to  many  otherwise  religious  minds. 
Hence  it  is  that  in  reading  a  narrative  like  this  of  the 
converse  which  Moses  held  with  God  in  the  taber- 
nacle in  the  wilderness  we  are  hindered  rather  than 
helped  by  the  anthropomorphism — that  is,  the  man- 
likeness — of  the  aspect  under  which  the  Deity  is  pre- 
sented to  our  minds.  We  ask  ourselves.  Did  Moses 
speak  with  God  face  to  face  ?  Did  the  Lord  look  with 
human    eyes    and    speak    with    human  voice  to  His 

33 


34        CITY    TEMPLE    SERMONS 

servant?  Could  He  do  so?  Have  we  here  a  sudden 
and  unimpressive  anticipation  of  the  manger  at  Bethle- 
hem and  the  upper  room  at  Jerusalem?  Obviously,  it 
was  not  so;  the  Lord  dwelleth  not  in  temples  made 
with  hands,  and  the  creation  cannot  contain  Him;  yet 
hath  the  only  begotten  of  the  Father,  full  of  grace  and 
truth,  declared  Him.  A  sentence  or  two  below  our 
text  we  read :  "  No  man  shall  look  upon  my  face  and 
live."  "  God  is  a  Spirit,  and  they  that  worship  Him 
must  worship  Him  in  spirit  and  in  truth."  Let  us  dis- 
miss the  difficulty  and  penetrate  at  once  to  the  spiritual 
meaning  which  underlies  these  symbolical,  mystical 
words.  Moses  did  speak  with  God  face  to  face, 
as  all  prophets  and  princes  of  the  Spirit  have  been 
(privileged  to  do;  as  you  and  I  may,  and  can,  and  do. 
He  communed  with  Him,  "  solus  cum  solo,"  alone 
with  the  Great  Alone,  the  Only  One,  with  the  only 
one.  He  talked  with  Him  "  face  to  face,  as  a  man 
speaketh  unto  his  friend."  So  spake  he,  this  leader  of 
the  host  of  Israel,  with  the  Friend  that  sticketh  closer 
than  a  brother.  It  was  no  stranger-God  with  whom 
he  held  converse,  but  one  whom  our  hearts  know  and 
our  souls  desire,  the  Fairest  among  ten  thousand,  and 
the  Altogether  Lovely,  who,  in  after  days,  declared  to 
His  own :  "  Ye  are  my  friends,  if  ye  do  the  things 
which  I  command  you.  Henceforth  I  call  you  not 
servants,  for  the  servant  knoweth  not  what  his  lord 
doeth,  but  I  have  called  you  friends ;  for  all  things 
that  I  have  heard  of  my  Father  I  have  made  known 
unto  you."  Whether  he  knew  it  or  not,  it  was  with  the 
Christ — our  Christ,  the  point  at  which  humanity  meets 
Deity,  that  Moses  communed  in  the  tabernacle  in  the 
wilderness;  just  as,  in  after  days,  with  clearer  vision, 


COMMUNION    WITH    GOD        36 

he  communed  with  Him  on  the  Mount  of  Transfigura- 
tion, nigh  to  Jerusalem. 

I  ask  you,  therefore,  to  consider  with  me,  in  the 
light  of  the  New  Testament  experience,  this  message 
of  ancient  Israel,  and  we  will  think  about  two  things : 
(i)  The  present-day  need  of  personal  communion  with 
God;  (2)  the  method  thereof  and  the  blessing  there- 
from. 

I.  It  is  a  remarkable  thing  that  when  we  are  seek- 
ing for  the  language  of  adoration  and  spiritual  feeling 
we  have  to  go  to  the  Old  Testament ;  we  seek  in  the 
phrases  of  psalmist  and  prophet  the  words  which  ex- 
press for  us — what  no  words  can  ever  adequately 
express — the  feelings  of  the  soul  when  aspiring  to- 
wards God.  "  One  thing  have  I  desired  of  the  Lord ; 
that  will  I  seek  after,  that  I  may  dwell  in  the  house  of 
the  Lord  [the  home  of  the  Lord],  all  the  days  of  my 
life,  to  behold  the  beauty  of  the  Lord,  and  to  inquire 
in  His  temple ;  "  "  my  meditation  of  Him  shall  be  sweet, 
and  I  will  be  glad  in  the  Lord."  Such  words  as  these 
have  been  taken,  not  wrested,  from  their  context, 
transferred  and  concentrated  upon  the  feeling  the 
Christian  has  for  Jesus ;  and  to-day,  if  we  want  to  say 
what  we  experience  concerning  Him  who  is  the  Shep- 
herd and  Bishop  of  our  souls,  we  turn  to  the  language 
of  ancient  Israel,  to  psalmist  and  prophet.  The  very 
words  of  our  text  have  a  sweeter,  tenderer  meaning 
when  we  think  of  them,  as  applied  to  Christ. 

The  Christian  centuries  have  been  marked  by  experi- 
ence of  the  closer  relationship  existing  between  the 
soul  and  its  Maker,  as  expressed  in  the  language  of  the 
Old  Testament,  but  with  the  high  spiritual  conscious- 
ness of  the  New. 


36        CITY    TEMPLE    SERMONS 

Let  us  think  of  the  joy  the  Christian  has  in  personal 
communion  with  the  risen  and  exalted  Christ.  Eight 
centuries  ago,  or  nearly,  Bernard  of  Clairvaux  wrote : 

"  Jesus  !  the  very  thought  of  Thee 

With  sweetness  fills  my  breast. 
But  sweeter  far  Thy  face  to  see, 

And  in  Thy  presence  rest. 
Jesus,  my  only  joy  be  Thou, 

As  Thou  my  prize  wilt  be  ; 
Jesus,  be  Thou  my  glory  now 

And  through  eternity." 

No  mere  sentimentalist  was  he  who  wrote  those 
words,  but  a  man  at  whose  word  Europe  trembled 
when  Europe  was  wrong;  kings  and  princes  con- 
fessed their  sin;  the  Christian  world  responded  to  his 
prophet-call. 

St.  Francis  of  Assisi,  the  Methodist  of  the  thirteenth 
century,  was  once  watched  by  one  who  loved  him  well 
that  he  might  learn  from  his  master  how  to  pray,  as 
his  master  had  learnt  from  Him  who  taught  His  dis- 
ciples in  the  days  of  old ;  and  when  he  watched  with 
indelicate  intrusion,  but  with  a  holy  intent,  this  was 
all  he  discovered :  Over  and  over  again,  the  saint 
was  saying,  with  head  bowed  and  hands  clasped,  the 
name  of  Jesus.  The  great  Apostle  of  the  Reformation, 
moving  in  stirring  times,  riding  upon  the  storm,  writes 
to  one  who  knew  him  well,  "  I  am  so  busy  that  I  cannot 
get  on  without  eight  hours  a  day  spent  in  prayer  to 
my  Master."  Are  we  to  understand  that  Martin 
Luther  could  take  eight  hours  apart  from  his  work? 
because,  if  so,  the  conditions  of  his  busy  life  were  very 
dissimilar  from  the  conditions  of  yours.  Nothing  of 
the  kind. 


COMMUNION    WITH    GOD        37 

"  Work  shall  be  prayer  if  all  be  wrought 
As  Thou  wouldst  have  it  done, 
And  prayer  by  Thee  inspired  and  taught 
Itself  with  work  be  one." 

But  there  was  this  dijfference  between  Luther  and 
some  of  you:  Before  his  thoughts  became  purposes, 
before  his  purposes  became  deeds,  they  were  referred 
to  the  Master  of  all ;  his  communion  with  Him  was 
sweet ;  he  spake  with  Him  face  to  face,  as  a  man  speak- 
eth  with  his  friend ;  and,  therefore,  it  was  that  it  might 
be  said  of  him  as  it  was  said  of  John  Knox  by  the 
Regent  Morton :  "  He  never  feared  the  face  of  man, 
so  familiar  was  he  with  the  face  of  God." 

Without  unduly  lengthening  these  instances,  I  would 
remind  Methodists  of  the  way  in  which  that  mighty 
movement,  early  Methodism,  achieved  its  initial  tri- 
umphs. Wesley  writes  in  his  journal,  "  At  three  in 
the  morning,  as  we  " — a  little  group  who  met  in  an 
upper  room,  like  that  at  Jerusalem — "  continued  in- 
stant in  prayer,  the  Holy  Ghost  came  mightily  upon 
us,  insomuch  that,  overawed,  we  fell  to  the  ground. 
When  we  had  somewhat  recovered  from  the  sense  of 
the  presence  of  the  Majesty  on  High,  we  broke  with 
one  accord  into  the  strains  of  the  '  Te  Deum,'  *  We 
praise,  Thee,  O  God,  we  acknowledge  Thee  to  be  the 
Lord.' "  Thence  went  Methodism  forth,  conquering 
and  to  conquer. 

Verily  in  every  century  personal  communion  with 
God  has  been  held  to  be  the  highest  privilege  of  the 
soul ;  so  much  so  that,  as  "  J.  B.,"  of  The  Christian 
World,  has  put  it,  men  have  tried  by  illegitimate  means 
to  retain  the  experience,  while  failing  to  fulfil  the  con- 
ditions thereof.     For,  by  communion,  such  as  I  have 


38       CITY    TEMPLE    SERMONS 

instanced  just  now,  I  am  not  speaking  of  prayer  only 
in  the  sense  of  petition.  Our  joy  in  the  presence  of 
our  loved  and  nearest  does  not  spring  from  the  fact 
that  they  or  we  are  begging  from  each  other,  though 
we  delight  to  give  ourselves  to  each  other.  Communion 
of  soul  is  the  only  real  communion.  There  is  a  lan- 
guage of  the  eye  more  eloquent  than  the  language  of 
the  lip,  and  a  language  of  silence  more  eloquent  than 
either;  it  is  enough  to  be  near,  to  feel  yourself  glad- 
dened in  the  presence  of  the  loved.  And  as  Fenelon, 
the  great  French  preacher  and  mystic,  has  phrased  it 
for  us,  so  we  might  say,  "  Thou  art,  O  Father,  so 
really  within  ourselves,  where  we  seldom  or  never 
look,  that  Thou  art  to  us  a  hidden  God."  We  have 
not  arrived  at  the  meaning  of  life,  nor  at  the  possession 
of  our  own  souls  till  we  have  learned  what  it  means  to 
commune  with  God ;  for  at  one  point  in  experience,  as 
J.  H.  Newman  reminds  us,  the  only  realities  for  the 
soul,  the  only  realities  for  any  man,  are  oneself  and 
God. 

This  is  the  corrective  for  all  that  is  wrong,  fever- 
ish, agitated,  evil,  in  life ;  and  this,  in  the  city  of  Lon- 
don to-day,  and  in  this  congregation,  is  the  greatest 
and  strongest  need — whether  you  are  conscious  of  it 
or  not — that  exists  for  you.  We  are  divine ;  you  are 
divine ;  your  divinity  will  only  find  itself  in  contact  with 
Deity.  The  soul  is  not  yours  to  begin  with ;  it  has  to 
be  wrought  for,  gained,  and  won ;  the  man  who  knows 
nothing  of  communion  with  God  is  a  stranger  to  him- 
self, and  we  find  ourselves  only  as  we  find  Him  whom 
our  hearts  desire.  This  is  an  experience  greater  than 
any  proposition ;  it  cannot  be  put  into  syllogisms ;  but 
it  is  the  most  real  of  all  experiences  to  some  who  wor- 


COMMUNION    WITH    GOD        3» 

ship  here  to-day.  Our  home  is  in  God — in  Tenny- 
sonian  phrase — 

"  When  that  which  drew  from  out  the  boundless  deep 
Turns  again  home," 

and  as  Sabatier,  the  great  French  theologian,  has  said, 
"  If  wearied  with  the  world  of  pleasure  or  of  toil,  I 
long  to  find  my  soul  again,  and  live  a  deeper  life, 
I  can  accept  no  other  Guide  and  Master  than  Jesus 
Christ,  because  in  Him  alone  optimism  is  without 
frivolity  and  seriousness  without  despair." 

II.  The  method  of  such  communion  is  not  far  to 
seek.  I  am  not  afraid  of  a  trite  observation,  or  of 
repeating  something  that  is  venerable,  when  I  say. 
The  first  essential  for  busy  men  is  withdrawal  from 
your  fellows  that  you  may  be  alone  with  God.  Into  the 
tabernacle  in  the  wilderness !  Leave  the  multitude  at 
the  tent-door,  you  will  serve  them  the  better  when  you 
return.  Fathers  and  mothers,  burdened  for  your 
children,  life  means  many  things  to  you ;  it  would  be- 
come simple  and  glorious  and  beautiful  if  you  left 
them  sometimes  that  you  might  bear  them  on  your 
hearts  to  God. 

"  Oh,  what  peace  we  often  forfeit, 
Oh,  what  needless  pain  we  bear! 
All  because  we  do  not  carry 
Everything  to  God  in  prayer." 

Here  are  you,  City  men,  snatching  an  hour  or  half  an 
hour  in  the  middle  of  the  day  to  worship  God.  Why 
are  you  going  back  again  to  toil  ?  It  is  because  of 
those  represented  here,  but  not  amongst  us — the  wife 
and  the  little  ones  at  home.  You  are  not  fighting  for 
your  own  hand.     Neither  was  that  man  who  cheated 


40        CITY    TEMPLE    SERMONS 

_you  this  morning ;  pity  him,  if  it  were  so.  I  never  yet 
met  a  man  who  was  not  playing  to  an  audience,  how- 
ever small.  You  are  caring  for  somebody,  that  is 
why  you  toil ;  you  are  labouring  and  suffering,  not  for 
yourself;  life  would  be  dreary  to-morrow,  if  they  were 
gone.  You  live  in  the  being  of  another  or  others.  They 
were  God's  before  they  were  yours ;  those  whom  He 
has  given  you  He  could  care  for  Himself  without  you. 
Would  you  learn  how  to  serve?  Leave  them  and  be 
alone  with  God.  "  Haven't  the  time !  "  You  have ; 
you  have  time  for  many  things ;  time  to  commune ;  lis- 
ten to  the  voice  of  the  Eternal.  Time  ? — there  is  time 
in  Cheapside  to  command  audience  of  heaven.  Time? 
— why,  you  are  always  alone,  even  in  your  busiest  hour. 
Make  a  sanctuary  outside  the  City  Temple,  in  the 
midst  of  your  fellows,  in  the  heart  of  your  business, 
speak  with  God  in  the  tabernacle,  face  to  face,  as  a 
man  speaketh  unto  his  friend. 

The  other  condition  of  your  communion  is  openness 
to  God.  Cease  from  the  prayer  of  agonised  entreaty; 
that  has  its  place;  wait  for  the  speech  of  God.  Our 
fathers  knew  all  about  this.  I  saw  on  the  service  paper 
last  week  that  the  City  Temple  is  the  oldest  Congre- 
gational church  in  London.  It  dates  from  1640.  Do 
you  know  what  was  the  type  of  religious  life  then? 
We  could  criticise  it ;  it  was  very  grim ;  in  some  cases 
it  was  very  hard,  perhaps  it  was  too  self-sufficient.  But 
•no  man  waited  then  for  his  neighbour  to  tell  him  about 
the  preciousness  of  God ;  he  knew.  That  was  the  day 
of  the  high-backed  pew,  when  a  man  came  to  church 
not  to  look  at  anybody,  but  to  speak  with  God.  That 
experience  was  real ;  it  made  such  men  as  conquered 
at  Marston  Moor  and  sent  the  Royalists  to  confusion 


COMMUNION    WITH    GOD         41 

at  Naseby.  They  were  not  less  men  than  you ;  there 
was  no  effeminacy  in  the  Puritan.  Now,  in  this  day 
of  conventions,  and  demonstrations,  and  congresses, 
and  what  not,  we  commune  with  each  other  rather  than 
with  God,  and  we  lose  because  we  do  not  know  what  it 
is — am  I  exaggerating? — in  the  same  degree  to  be 
alone  with  the  Maker  of  us  all.  There  is  prayer  which 
is  stillness,  susceptibility  to  the  Eternal,  a  heart  ready 
for  the  impulses  brought  by  the  Spirit  of  God. 

"  And  when  in  silent  awe  we  wait 
And  word  and  sign  forbear, 
The  hinges  of  the  golden  gate 
Move,  soundless,  to  our  prayer." 

That  is  the  time  of  vision.  Would  you  see  what  the 
needs  of  the  world  are,  that  you  may  have  opportunity 
to  remedy  them?  See  in  the  stillness,  see  in  the  soli- 
tude, see  in  the  holy  place,  the  multitudes  waiting  with- 
out the  tent  door  for  the  Prophet,  Master,  and  Leader 
to  return,  "  Our  deepest  feelings  are  precisely  those 
we  are  least  able  to  express,  and  even  in  the  act  of 
adoration  silence  is  our  highest  praise." 

Then  comes  the  blessing.  The  still,  small  voice  that 
speaks  within  needs  no  apologist;  you  know  it  when 
you  hear  it.  There  is  a  sweet  comfort  and  a  shining 
peace  in  the  holy  place  with  Jesus. 

Well  do  I  know  the  exceptions  to  this  great  state- 
ment. It  is  not  always  easy  to  pray.  Sometimes  you  will 
be  overwhelmed  in  the  black  waters  of  sorrow,  and 
feel  as  if  utterance  were  denied  you,  and  you  cannot 
pray.  Say  so  to  the  living  God.  I  have  here  some 
words  that  I  copied  for  you,  written  by  a  fourteenth- 
century  mystic,  who  would  not  recognise  the  Citv  of 
to-day,  and  yet  they  were  written  not  far  from  the 


42       CITY    TEMPLE    SERMONS 

City :  "  Pray  inwardly  " — from  within — "  though 
thou  thinkest  it  savour  thee  not;  for  it  is  profitable 
though  thou  feel  not,  though  thou  see  naught,  yea, 
though  thou  thinkest  thou  canst  not ;  for  in  dryness,  in 
barrenness,  in  sickness,  in  feebleness,  then  is  thy  prayer 
well  pleasant  unto  Me — and  I  am  Jesus."  When  I  am 
thinking  I  am  listening,  and  the  voice  that  speaks  to  me 
is  the  voice  that  spake  by  the  Lake  of  Galilee — the 
same,  and  not  another;  and  the  Christ  who  spake  to 
our  fathers,  the  Christ  in  whose  name  we  are  gathered 
here,  the  same  Christ  it  is  who  speaks  within  your  own 
soul  now.  Cease  from  your  restlessness,  give  Him  a 
hearing;  He  preaches  His  own  sermons,  brings  His 
own  message;  keeps  with  His  own  power  those  whom 
the  Father  has  given  unto  Him. 

Hear  me,  you  who  are  strong,  and  true,  and  brave, 
but  who  do  not  commune :  you  are  missing  something. 
Begin  even  now  ;  leave  the  rest  of  us  and  cleave  to  God. 
Be  your  problem  what  it  may,  you  are  insufficient  for 
it ;  for  even  though  you  do  not  pray,  God  remembers 
and  saves,  but  when  you  do  the  whole  world  is 
different,  the  light  is  upon  it  that  never  was  on  sea  or 
land.  Hear  me,  you  who  are  sunken  in  despair,  you 
who  are  in  chains  and  bondage  to  propensity  or  shame : 
speak  not  to  me  concerning  this.  The  arm  of  flesh  will 
fail  you ;  you  dare  not  trust  another's,  much  less  your 
own.  Go  right  to  the  Fountain  of  all  that  is  good ; 
speak  to  the  Eternal,  who  is  the  source  of  everything 
that  is  holy,  and  tender,  and  true ;  learn  to  love  by 
learning  to  pray.  "  Where  the  Spirit  of  the  Lord  is, 
there  is  liberty ;  "  "  and  we  all  with  unveiled  face,  be- 
holding as  in  a  glass  the  glory  of  the  Lord,  are  changed 
into  the  same  image  from  glory  unto  glory  as  by  the 
Spirit  of  the  Lord." 


IV 
CAN  GOD  ANSWER  PRAYER? 

If  ye  then,  being  evil,  know  how  to  give  good  gifts  unto 
your  children,  how  much  more  shall  your  heavenly  Father 
give  the  Holy  Spirit  to  them  that  ask  Him  ? — Luke  xi.  ij. 

This  is  the  confidence  that  we  have  in  Him,  that,  if  we 
ask  anything  according  to  His  will.  He  heareth  us  ;  attd  if 
lue  know  that  He  heareth  us,  whatsoever  we  ask,  we  know 
that  we  have  the  petitions  that  we  desired  of  Him. 

— I  fohn  V.  I4-IS- 

THE  subject  of  prayer  is  one  of  never-fail- 
ing interest  to  human-kind.  For  all  men 
pray  at  some  time  or  other,  whether 
fitfully  or  constantly,  in  weakness  or  in  strength, 
in  sorrow  or  in  joy.  Some  men  pray  because  it 
is  their  chiefest  delight  so  to  do,  and  some  pray 
because  necessity  drives  them  to  it;  but  they  all 
pray.  Prayer  is  a  constant  element,  and  the  impulse 
to  pray  is  ever  present  to  human  nature.  The  ques- 
tion is  not.  Shall  we  pray  ?  but,  Can  God  hear  us  when 
■we  do;  is  there  room  for  Him  to  answer;  is  it  any  use 
to  pray?  To  this  question  our  texts — the  one  on  the 
authority  of  Jesus  Christ,  and  the  other  the  testimony 
of  Christian  experience — supply  the  answer.  The 
former,  remember,  is  the  simple,  but  very  direct  and 
unequivocal,  declaration,  "  If  ye  then,  being  evil,  know 
how  to  give  good  gifts  unto  your  children,  how  much 
more  shall  your  heavenly  Father  give  " — that  which 
includes  and  is  present  in  every  good  gift — "  the  Holy 

43 


44       CITY    TEMPLE    SERMONS 

Spirit  to  them  that  ask  Him  ?  "  And  the  testimony  of 
Christian  experience,  the  experience  of  a  man  who  had 
heard  these  words  spoken,  and  Hved  upon  the  strength 
of  them,  is  this,  "  This  is  the  confidence  that  we  have 
in  Him  " — in  Christ,  as  you  will  see  by  the  context — 
"  that,  if  we  ask  anything  according  to  His  will,  He 
heareth  us ;  and  if  we  know  that  He  heareth  us,  what- 
soever we  ask,  we  know  that  we  have  the  petitions  that 
we  desired  of  Him." 

Some  things  are  very  striking  about  the  New  Testa- 
ment teaching  on  the  subject  of  prayer,  but  none  of 
them  is  more  striking  than  this,  and  the  more  I  ponder 
the  matter  the  more  remarkable  it  seems  to  me — the 
fewness  of  the  conditions  attached  to  the  prayer  that 
compels  answer  from  God.  New  Testament  teaching, 
especially  the  words  of  Jesus,  are  perfectly  direct, 
simple,  and  emphatic  about  this.  Further,  our  Lord 
never  hesitates  in  His  teaching  about  prayer  to  apply 
the  anthropomorphic  argument.  He  illustrates  the 
doings  of  God  from  the  best  we  know  of  men,  and 
when  we  have  said  all  we  can  say  upon  the  subject  of 
prayer,  we  shall  just  have  come  back  to  the  words  of 
our  Lord,  "  If  ye," — any  of  you  that  is  a  father — 
"  give,  then  how  much  more  your  heavenly  Father, 
from  whom  cometh  every  good  and  every  perfect  gift." 

Moreover,  I  observe,  and  it  is  very  striking  when 
you  think  of  it,  that  our  Lord  does  not  illustrate  the 
doings  of  the  Father  of  our  spirits  in  the  best  man, 
otherwise  His  argument  might  have  run  thus :  "  Look 
at  me,  see  how  kind  I  am  and  how  good ;  the  Father  is 
as  good  as  I ;  He  will  do  for  you  the  things  I  am  trying 
to  do."  But  His  argument  was  drawn  from  the  ex- 
perience of  any  man.     Looking  upon  those  who,  im- 


CAN  GOD  ANSWER  PRAYER?  45 

perfect  as  they  were,  represented,  perhaps,  the  best 
that  Jewish  society  produced  at  the  time,  but  yet  im- 
perfect, struggHng,  faiHng,  falHng  men,  He  said,  "  If 
ye,"  any  of  you,  "  being  evil,  know  how  to  give  good 
gifts  unto  your  children,  how  much  more  your  heavenly 
Father !  "  The  argument  seems  to  me  to  gain  strength 
indeed ;  for  if  our  Lord  were  here  at  this  moment,  He 
would  select  any  man  in  this  congregation  and  make 
him  His  illustration  and  His  proof  of  the  goodness  of 
God.  He  would  say.  Are  you  capable  of  pity?  then 
God  is  not  worse  than  you.  Are  you  capable  of  kind- 
ness to  your  child  ?  God's  love  must  be  greater  than 
yours,  for  it  produced  you.  Are  you  capable  of  taking 
delight  in  answering  prayer?  why,  you  are  doing  it 
every  day;  that  is  what  you  are  in  the  City  for,  in 
order  that  you  may  have  the  wherewith  to  answer 
the  prayers  that  will  meet  you  when  you  get  home.  If 
you,  any  of  you,  bad  or  good,  know  how  to  give  good 
gifts  unto  those  whom  you  love,  how  much  more  your 
Father  which  is  in  heaven.  Robert  Browning  has 
very  beautifully  expressed  this  in  one  of  his  best- 
known  poems : 

•'  Do  I  find  love  so  full  in  my  nature,  God's  ultimate  gift, 
That  I  doubt  His  own  love  can  compete  with  it  ? 
Here,  the  pai'ts  shift  ? 
Here,  the  creature  surpass  the  Creator — the  end,  what 
began  ? 

I  believe  it  !  'Tis  Thou,  God,  that  givest,  'tis  I  who  receive  ; 
In  the  first  is  the  last,  in  Thy  will  is  my  power  to  believe. 
All's  one  gift  ;  Thou  canst  grant  it,  moreover,  as  prompt  to 

my  prayer 
As  I  breathe  out  this  breath,  as  I  open  these  arms  to  the  air." 

What  is  prayer?     Not  everything  that  receives  that 


46       CITY    TEMPLE    SERMONS 

name  is  really  prayer.  Most,  if  not  all,  of  you  have 
read  Victor  Hugo's  "  Notre  Dame,"  and  you  may 
remember  that  terribly  realistic  last  chapter — a  faithful 
picture,  I  fear,  of  mediaevalism  at  its  worst — and  the 
introduction  of  the  figure  of  Louis  XL  and  of  the  poor 
girl  who  is  being  done  to  death  by  wicked  men.  Ac- 
cused of  being  a  witch,  the  poor,  simple  girl  takes 
refuge  in  a  cathedral,  and  Louis — religious,  crafty, 
superstitious,  villainous,  vicious,  unscrupulous — prays, 
ere  the  sin  is  committed,  for  forgiveness,  that  he  may 
take  the  girl  from  the  sanctuary  and  drag  her  to  a 
death  of  agony  and  shame.  He  manages  to  convince 
himself  that  forgiveness  is  accorded  before  the  deed 
is  done.  He  would  have  called  it  prayer.  What 
Avould  you  call  it?  That  petition  came  from  the  hell 
to  which  its  fruits  returned ;  it  damned  the  man  who 
prayed  it,  not  the  poor  girl  against  whom  it  was  prayed. 
You  need  no  further  illustration  as  to  what  is  not 
prayer.  What  is?  Prayer  is  that  in  which  the  soul 
looks  up ;  it  must  be  the  expression  of  nobleness  in  the 
man  who  prays.  You  stand  upon  the  tableland  of 
character  when  you  pray.  It  is  the  utterance  of  the 
soul's  highest  to  God,  and  He  will  be  content  with 
nothing  less.  You  have  reached  to  the  limit  of  capacity 
when  you  have  called  to  God;  the  best  that  is  in  you 
appeals  to  High  Heaven  when  you  pray.  Prayer,  said 
William  Law,  is  the  nearest  approach  unto  God  and  the 
highest  enjoyment  of  Him  that  we  can  have  in  this 
world. 

"  Prayer  is  the  Christian's  vital  breath, 
The  Christian's  native  air, 
His  watchword  at  the  sfates  of  death, 
He  enters  heaven  by  prayer." 


CAN  GOD  ANSWER  PRAYER?  47 

Prayer  is  all  this.  Is  it  anything  else  ?  Yes ;  prayer 
is  a  demand  note  addressed  to  Heaven,  prayer  is  the 
human  will  moving  the  arm  of  God,  prayer  is  grasp- 
ing the  power  unseen  and  bringing  it  down  to  work 
great  things  in  the  seen.  Prayer  is  human  goodness 
transcending  its  limitations  and  bringing  down  the  will- 
ing aid  of  the  willing  Father  in  human  things.  But, 
says  someone,  you  have  trenched  now  upon  a  difficult 
subject,  and  made  a  very  dangerous  statement.  Is  it 
reasonable  to  believe  in  such  prayer  as  that?  Is  not 
this  compelling  the  Arbiter  of  our  destinies  to  abdicate  ? 
I  admit  the  difficulty,  and  answer  it  thus : 

First,  it  is  a  matter  of  simple  experience  that,  law  or 
no  law,  difficulty  or  no  difficulty,  prayer  does  move  the 
arm  of  God.  Here  kneels  George  Miiller,  praying  for 
a  breakfast  for  a  thousand  and  more  orphans,  and  it 
comes ;  here  is  a  life's  record  in.  which  a  man  prayed  a 
solid  million  into  existence,  without  asking  a  man  for  a 
penny.  That  is  evidence  as  well  worth  consideration 
as  the  law  by  which  an  apple  falls  to  the  ground.  Here 
is  C.  H.  Spurgeon  kneeling  at  the  end  of  his  financial 
year  to  tell  God  about  the  difficulties  that  had  to  be  met 
and  the  record  that  has  to  be  placed  to  his  credit. 
That  man,  who  Hved  a  life  of  prayer,  and  was  a  prince 
of  the  Gospel,  if  ever  there  was  one,  would  have  said 
at  the  last  moment,  if  asked  for  his  testimony,  "  Good- 
ness and  mercy  have  followed  me  all  the  days  of  my 
life.  God  has  never  failed  when  I  have  called  upon 
Him." 

The  witness  of  holiness  is  worth  investigation. 
What  is  holiness?  I  wish  I  could  tell  you  the  differ- 
ence between  holiness  and  nobleness.  It  does  not 
mean  that  the  one  excludes  the  other,  but  it  is  the  dif- 


48       CITY    TEMPLE    SERMONS 

ference  between  the  diamond  and  the  carbon.  Nobody 
can  tell  us  what  makes  a  carbon  a  diamond.  The  same 
substances  are  in  both,  combined  in  exactly  the  same 
proportions,  but  the  one  will  shine  in  the  dark  and  the 
other  will  not.  We  cannot  sec  what  makes  the  dif- 
ference, except  that  the  diamond,  which  is  a  carbon 
after  all,  has  managed  to  feed  upon  the  light  somehow, 
and  store  it,  and  shine  by  its  lustre.  Holiness  is 
character,  the  shining  light  that  never  was  on  sea  or 
land ;  holiness  is  character  with  a  fragrance ;  holiness 
is  an  influence  of  itself,  and  it  is  begotten  of  communion 
with  the  Unseen,  and  without  that  you  never  have  it, 
and  no  man  has  ever  had  it.  When  you  speak  about 
the  men  you  know  in  business  life  who  are  living  wel) 
and  nobly  without  any  particular  faith  in  God,  with 
nothing  more  than  a  faith  in  right,  you  know,  as  wel' 
as  I  know,  and  as  well  as  they  know,  too,  that  if  yot 
place  a  Spurgeon  and  a  Catherine  Booth  alongside 
them,  the  difference  is  that  of  the  diamond  and  of  the 
carbon,  and  the  difference  is  made  by  prayer.  The  one 
is  mighty  in  communion  with  the  Unseen,  and  the  other 
is  not.  The  witness  of  holiness  to  the  efficacy  of  prayer 
is  this,  that  no  saint  ever  prayed  and  doubted  about  his 
answer;  if  it  came  not  in  one  way,  it  came  in  another. 
Unvarying,  unaltering  is  the  witness  of  holiness  to  the 
fact  that  God  does  hear  prayer,  however  it  is  done. 

Secondly,  moral  freedom  and  answered  prayer  in- 
volve each  other.  The  one  factor  of  uncertainty  in  the 
whole  scheme  of  things  of  which  you  are  a  part,  is 
human  will.  Philosophers  may  say  what  they  please, 
but  you  never  get  the  ordinary  man  to  believe  that  he 
has  not  some  power  of  control  over  his  own  destiny. 
You  came  from  a  business  house  just  now,  where  you 


CAN  GOD  ANSWER  PRAYER?  49 

were  engaged  in  altercation  with  a  man,  blaming  him 
for  a  dirty  trick.  You  know  that  he  need  not  have 
done  it ;  he  knows  it,  too.  You  come  into  the  presence 
of  one  whose  face  reminds  you  of  a  noble  and  unselfish 
act,  and  you  think,  I  wish  I  were  like  him.  He  need 
not  have  been  what  he  is ;  it  is  grand  that  he  chose  the 
higher.  You  would  never  get  men  to  believe  that  the 
world  is  so  colourless,  so  automatic,  that  men  have  no 
power  of  self-direction  and  self-control.  This  power 
may  be  much  more  limited  than  you  think.  I  am  pre- 
pared to  conclude  that  in  many  instances  moral  respon- 
sibility is  not  so  great  as  the  bystanders  imagine ;  but 
it  is  always  there,  however  small  the  circle  within 
which  it  is  exercised.  A  man  remains  a  man  with  the 
God-like  faculty  of  willing  the  right  and  avoiding  the 
wrong.  Once  you  have  admitted  that  factor  of  tmcer- 
tainty,  which  experience  always  testifies  to,  you  have 
admitted  the  possibility,  nay,  the  imperative  probability, 
of  answer  to  prayer.  For  if  you  can  take  the  helm  out 
of  the  hands  of  God,  you  can  put  it  back ;  if  you  are 
free  to  do  wrong,  you  are  free  to  pray,  "  God  be  merci- 
ful to  me  a  sinner  " ;  if  you  are  free  to  exercise  in- 
fluence over  any  man,  you  are  free  to  pray  to  the  Giver 
of  the  awful  gift  that  He  would  help  you  in  the  exercise 
thereof.  If  you  are  free  as  a  spirit  to  commune  with 
the  Father  of  spirits,  you  are  free  to  transcend  law. 
For  what  is  law  but  your  experience  of  the  dependable- 
ness  of  God?  We  talk  as  if  law  was  something  inex- 
orable and  to  be  afraid  of.  Law  presumes  the  Law- 
giver ;  it  is  personalitv  at  the  back,  a  consistent  God 
who  ordains  the  things  upon  which  vou  can  depend. 
Under  the  uniformitv  of  nature  there  exists  an  inex- 
haustible variety.     No  flower  will  ever  grow  in  the 


50       CITY    TEMPLE    SERMONS 

isame  spot  as  another ;  you  never  have  two  leaves  in  the 
vegetable  world  alike.  Under  the  operation  of  law, 
unceasing  as  it  is,  God  is  making  a  differentiation  all 
the  time.  Your  life  is  different  from  that  of  the 
man  who  sits  next  to  you,  and  though  there  be  a 
Divinity  that  shapes  your  ends,  rough-hew  them  how 
you  will,  there  is  power  left  for  you  to  refer  thought, 
act,  and  purpose  back  to  God,  who  gave  you  the  power 
of  self-direction  and  self-control. 

Prayer  is  the  reinforcement  of  human  endeavour ;  it 
is  not  the  substitute  for  it.  Prayer  is  the  enlargement 
of  your  personality ;  prayer  is  working  on  power  from 
the  unseen — mighty  are  those  who  know  how  to  bring 
it.  It  is  said  that  the  presence  of  Napoleon  on  the  field 
of  battle  was  equivalent  to  a  reinforcement  of  40,000 
men.  Why?  Because  he  so  increased  the  fighting 
value  of  every  separate  man,  that  his  mere  presence 
was  equivalent  to  another  army.  Prayer  will  do  that 
for  you.  The  man  of  prayer  is  the  best  kind  of  man. 
The  man  who  can  go  to  God  when  he  has  done  his  own 
best  is  drawing  what  the  natural  man  cannot  have. 
The  spiritual  man  is  the  man  of  power,  because  he  is 
the  man  of  prayer. 

The  latest  of  fads  in  the  semi-religious  world  is  that 
which,  under  various  titles,  is  most  commonly  de- 
scribed as  "  Christian  Science."  The  vogue  which 
this  fad  has  is  a  rebuke  to  me  and  to  other  preachers 
of  the  Gospel.  For  the  only  moiety  of  truth  that  it 
contains  is  the  purest  Christianity.  It  tells  you  of  the 
possibility  of  a  victorious  life,  a  life  of  victory  over 
ill  and  suffering,  danger  and  fear;  and  its  votaries  say 
that  what  is  required  from  those  who  would  be  Chris- 
tian Scientists  is  power  to  call  and  power  to  trust;  in 


CAN  GOD  ANSWER  PRAYER?  61 

tunc  with  the  Infinite  must  you  be;  those  who  are  in 
tune  with  the  Infinite  are  masters  of  their  destiny, 
never  the  victims  of  fate.  Is  that  new  in  the  history 
of  the  world?  It  was  taught  upon  the  hillside  of 
Galilee  nineteen  hundred  years  ago  by  Him  who  spake 
as  never  man  spake ;  it  was  taught  by  John  the  Be- 
loved, in  the  words  of  our  text.  If  we  ask  anything 
according  to  His  will,  He  heareth,  and  if  we  know  that 
He  heareth,  we  know  that  we  have  conquered.  Let 
there  be  no  mistake  about  the  power  which  comes  into 
a  man's  life  if  he  has  the  gift  of  prayer. 

"  Oh,  what  peace  we  often  forfeit, 
Oh,  what  needless  pain  we  bear  ! 
All  because  we  do  not  carry 
Everything  to  God  in  prayer," 

I  have  often  said  that  if  I  can  get  a  man  to  pray,  not 
now  and  then,  but  as  the  habit  of  his  life,  I  have  been 
the  means  of  saving  him.  He  will  be  strong,  instead 
of  weak ;  instead  of  leaning  for  help  upon  his  fellows, 
he  will  be  their  benefactor  and  the  ambassador  of  the 
Unseen.  Get  a  man  to  pray,  and  you  have  made  him 
strong,  you  have  given  him  faith,  you  have  made  him 
climb ;  get  a  man  to  pray,  and  the  Holy  Spirit  will  shine 
through  him,  and  the  world  will  be  better  because  he 
lives. 

There  no  true  prayer  without  its  answer.  This  may 
seem  a  great  deal  to  say,  but  I  would  like  every  young 
man  to  remember  that  point,  if  he  remembers  no  other. 
Louis  XL  did  not  pray,  but  that  man  did  who  said,  "  O 
God,  if  there  be  a  God,  save  my  soul,  if  I  have  a  soul." 
He  looked  up,  and  he  stood  at  his  highest ;  that  prayer 
set  heaven  in  motion.  Prayer  is  just  willing  Godward. 
The  answer  to  prayer  begins  at  the  moment  when  you 


62       CITY    TEMPLE    SERMONS 

begin  to  pray.  Somebody  prayed  this  morning  a 
prayer  that  the  preacher  did  not  pray ;  perhaps  nobody 
prayed  it  but  himself ;  he  does  not  want  to  publish  what 
it  was,  it  is  of  great  importance  to  him,  and  to  him 
only.  Perhaps  it  was  a  prayer  of  wounded  love,  tlie 
cry  of  a  broken  heart  and  of  ill-requited  affection.  It 
went  right  to  the  heart  of  the  Eternal ;  it  was  worthy  to 
go.  You  may  have  to  wait  a  long  time  before  you  see 
any  fruit  of  it,  but  that  prayer  was  as  the  prayer  of 
omnipotence.  You  took  hold,  as  Christ  would  take 
hold,  of  the  hand  of  the  Father,  and  what  is  to  be  in 
response  to  the  petition  has  begun  now. 

Will  you  who  are  tempted,  who  have  been  fighting  a 
battle  with  the  beast  within  you,  who  know  what  it  is 
to  contend  against  fearful  odds  in  a  world  of  extremes, 
of  light  and  darkness,  sorrow  and  joy,  who  feel  as  if 
you  are  being  overborne  in  the  battle  of  life,  think  of 
this :  Every  cry  that  goes  Godward  brings  its  immediate 
response  to  the  perturbed  and  anxious  heart.  For 
there  is  always  an  immediate  as  well  as  a  deferred 
answer  to  prayer.  Some  prayers  are  answered  quickly, 
some  slowly.  All  are  answered  more  grandly  than  the 
scope  of  the  petition  itself,  but  there  is  never  a  failure, 
and  if  you  can  only  learn  that  it  is  so,  there  will  be  no 
prayer  that  you  will  ever  pray  of  which  you  will  not 
be  conscious  that  God  has  spoken  in  the  moment  of 
your  prayer.  It  is  God's  will  that  you  should  use 
yours ;  it  is  God's  delight  to  hear  you  pray.  Have  you 
ever  gone  into  the  presence  of  God  when  you  felt  as  if 
you  could  not  speak  to  anybody,  as  if  the  world  was 
too  black,  your  confidence  in  yourself  too  feeble,  that 
the  first  thing  to  do  was  to  get  alone  somewhere,  and 
speak  your  thoughts,  desires,  and  anxieties,  to  the  great 


CAN  GOD  ANSWER  PRAYER?  53 

Friend,  the  living,  loving,  helpful  One  whom  eyes 
cannot  see,  but  whose  presence  we  feel  ?  How  did  you 
come  out  of  that  presence-chamber  ?  Changed,  I  war- 
rant; not  because  circumstances  had  changed,  but  be- 
cause peace  had  stolen  into  your  heart,  and  you  felt 
that 

"  God's  in  His  heaven 
All's  right  with  the  world." 

It  was  as  though  a  mother  had  picked  up  her  little 
child,  and  soothed  its  disquiet,  and  bidden  it  be  still, 
and  promised  nothing,  but  in  the  love  had  given  all. 
Just  to  know  Him  and  to  feel  Him  near  is  to  have  all 
your  prayers  ansv/ered  before  the  answer  to  one  of 
them  has  come.  Some  of  you  are  thinking,  maybe,  less 
about  yourselves  than  about  those  whom  God  has 
placed  near  you,  and  you  may  say,  "  I  know  of  a  prayer 
that  was  not  answered ;  I  remember  praying  long  ago 
about  that  wife,  that  boy  of  mine  whom  it  would  seem 
as  if  nothing  could  save ;  I  wrestled  in  agony  with  God, 
and  the  only  answer  was  death."  Maybe  that  was  the 
answer.  Sometimes  we  seem  unequal  to  the  task  of 
caring  for  those  whom  God  has  placed  under  our  care, 
and  we  tell  Him  so.  Perhaps  the  answer  is  that  He 
takes  them  home,  cares  for  them  Himself,  and  when 
we  stand  upon  the  other  side  of  death  we  shall  see  what 
it  all  means. 

"  We  kneel — how  weak  !     We  rise — how  full  of  power! 
Why  therefore  should  we  do  ourselves  this  wrong, 
Or  others — that  we  are  not  always  strong, 
That  we  are  ever  overborne  with  care, 

That  we  should  ever  weak  or  heartless  be, 
Anxious  or  troubled,  when  with  us  is  orayer. 
And  joy  and  strength  and  courage  are  with  Thee  ?  " 


SUPPOSING   CHRIST   WERE   ONLY  A 

MAN 

Pilate  saith  unto  them.  Behold  the  man  !  ^John  xix.  5. 

WHY  did  Pilate  say,  "  Behold  the  man !  "  ?  Let 
us  see.  For  the  first  time  in  his  experience, 
doubtless,  the  Roman  Governor  hesitated 
about  the  crucifixion  of  a  helpless  victim  of  popular 
fury.  Pilate's  chief  inducement,  one  would  have 
thought,  would  have  been  to  please  the  Jews, 
win  their  approval  by  crucifying  one  who  was 
evidently  the  object  of  their  bitter  hatred.  Yet 
he  hesitated  almost  up  to  the  point  when  the  mob 
would  have  turned  upon  him  and  wrested  from  him 
the  sceptre,  or  reported  him  to  his  dread  and  jealous 
lord,  the  Csesar,  gloomily  waiting  in  imperial  Rome. 
Yet  he  hesitated,  for  he  had  never  looked  on  a  prisoner 
like  this  one,  helpless  in  his  hands,  without  weapon  to 
defend  himself,  without  friend  to  speak  for  him ;  Pilate 
felt  that  he  had  changed  places  with  his  prisoner;  he 
was  upon  his  trial,  and  this  kingly  man  was  his  judge. 
He  had  never  looked  upon  such  a  man.  Even  in  his 
hour  of  shame  and  agony  the  Christ,  the  victim  of  the 
hatred  of  the  people  he  came  to  save,  towered  above 
them  in  majesty,  and  compelled  the  reluctant  admiring 
homage  of  this  master  of  legions  himself.  "  Art  thou 
a  king?"  he  said;  and  the  Christ,  penetrating  to  the 

54 


ONLYAMAN  65 

impulse  which  made  him  ask  the  question,  returned, 
"  Thou  sayest  it  because  I  am  a  king."  In  effect,  the 
Master  was  saying :  You  can  see  in  your  prisoner  of  to- 
day, with  this  purple  robe,  this  crown  of  thorns,  a 
Master  who,  though  esteemed  not  of  this  world,  is  a 
man  as  never  was  before ;  never  have  you  looked  upon 
a  man  like  this  :  thou  sayest  it  because  thou  seest  that  I 
am  a  king. 

Keeping  closely  to  the  natural  and  instinctive  feeling 
of  this  man  who  looked  upon  Jesus  for  the  first  time, 
let  me  introduce  you  to  the  most  pressing  religious 
question  of  to-day.  All  religious  controversy  seems 
for  the  moment  to  have  concentrated  upon  one  sacred 
head.  The  question  of  questions  at  the  present  hour 
is :  Who  was  and  is  Jesus  Christ  ?  I  am  proud  and 
glad  to  think  that  so  many  men  come  with  open  minds 
to  listen  to  that  question  who  do  not  ordinarily  frequent 
the  courts  of  the  Lord.  Some  of  you  think  you  have 
made  up  your  mind  upon  the  question,  and  that,  in 
doing  so  you  have  dethroned  the  Master  from  the  place 
where  superstition  has  placed  Him.  You  will  have  to 
come  back  again  and  reopen  the  question.  "  Behold 
the  man ! "  and  then  tell  me  what  you  think  of  the 
Christ. 

Some  of  you  feel  the  difficulty  of  accounting  for  the 
Master  while  retaining  the  halo  of  the  supernatural 
around  His  head.  One  sometimes  hears  men  say, 
"  How  easy  it  would  be  to  account  for  Jesus,  yea,  and 
to  render  Him  the  first  place  in  the  estimation  of  man- 
kind, if  only  we  could  strip  away  from  Him  all  the 
adjuncts  of  a  false  and  mistaken  piety ;  if  we  could  say, 
Here  is  a  man,  but  only  a  man,  one  of  ourselves,  a  great 
and  a  good,  but  still  only  a  man."     There  is  a  difficulty 


56       CITY    TEMPLE    SERMONS 

felt  about  the  dual  personality.  Sometimes  one  hears 
a  young  fellow  say :  "  How  could  this  man  pray  to  God 
and  be  God ;  exhort  Himself,  call  upon  Himself,  love, 
trust,  and  adore  Himself?  H  Jesus  and  the  Father 
were  one,  how  are  we  to  account  for  the  personality  of 
Jesus  Himself?  for  that  also  appears  to  be  one." 
True.  Another  difficulty  is  presented :  "  Would  it  not 
be  easier  to  say  that  Jesus  of  Nazareth,  the  victim  of 
Jewish  hate,  ran  the  course  that  all  goodness  does  in 
this  world  ?  men  crucify  their  prophets.  Did  not  Jesus 
die  a  martyr  to  the  beautiful  testimony  He  bore  to  the 
goodness  of  our  Father  in  heaven  ?  was  not  His  gospel 
the  occasion  of  His  death?  and  at  the  last  did  not  He, 
in  common  with  all  the  suffering  sons  of  men,  the  best 
as  well  as  the  worst,  cry  in  agony  from  the  Cross  of 
Calvary :  '  My  God,  my  God !  why  hast  Thou  forsaken 
Me?'  Is  it  not  true  that  His  bones  are  mouldering 
into  dust  in  Palestine  to-day, 

"And  on  his  grave,  with  shining  eyes. 
The  Syrian  stars  look  down  "  ? 

Oh,  simplify  the  matter  at  once,  and  let  us  say, 
Here  was  a  man,  the  greatest  of  men,  the  noblest  of 
men,  the  purest  of  men,  one  who  has  given  us  vision  of 
God,  but  still  only  a  man." 

Wait  a  little.  What  is  a  man?  Let  us  settle  that 
question  first.  The  difference  between  man  and  man  is 
all  but  infinite.  The  difference  between  a  Robespierre 
and  a  Cromwell,  for  example,  in  moral  stature.  Is  im- 
measurable. The  dififcrence  between  a  Charles  Peace 
and  a  Charles  Spurgcon  cannot  be  expressed  as  com- 
parison, only  as  contrast.  The  difference  between  a 
Voltaire  and  a  Wesley  is  all  but  infinite.     "  Only  a 


ONLY    A    MAN  57 

man  " — but  it  makes  a  great  difference  which  man. 
"  Only  a  man  " — suppose  it  was  Gladstone ;  no  build- 
ing in  this  land  or  in  any  other  land  would  hold  the 
people  who  would  flock  to  see  him  and  love  and  adore. 
Some  men  stand  far  above  their  fellows ;  you  cannot 
thir.k  of  them  without  looking  up;  their  humanity 
towers  up  and  up  until  it  is  lost  in  divinity  and  in- 
distinguishable therefrom. 

"  Only  a  man  "?  I  will  paint  you  a  picture  which 
is  perfectly  true.  Not  far  from  these  doors,  so  Hall 
Caine  tells  us,  there  are  gambling  hells  and  drinking 
dens — clubs  they  call  them,  of  one  kind  and  another — 
where  degraded  men,  like  harpies,  like  devils,  are  prey- 
ing upon  their  kind,  luring  the  youth  of  both  sexes  to 
destruction,  and  doing  it  for  gain,  selling  others,  body 
and  soul,  and  damning  their  own  in  the  process. 
"  Only  a  man  " — but  a  man  that  does  that  is  a  devil. 
Again :  Into  one  such  den  on  a  certain  dark  night  there 
went  another  man,  and  by  main  force  of  his  sanctified 
personality  he  drew  out  of  that  foul  and  reeking  sink 
of  iniquity  one  and  another — a  man,  a  woman ;  gave 
them  back  their  manhood  and  their  womanhood,  and 
drew  them  to  the  God  whom  their  life  had  denied. 
That  man  died,  after  a  life  spent  in  saving;  he  died 
because,  some  wise  people  tell  us,  he  had  worked  too 
hard  to  better  the  lot  of  humanity ;  he  died  because  his 
rescue  work  had  killed  him.  Now  we  speak  of  him 
as  a  saint.  Thousands  followed  him  to  the  tomb ;  on 
the  day  when  he  was  laid  to  rest  it  was  impossible 
almost  for  all  those  who  wished  to  pay  tribute  to  his 
memory  to  obtain  access  to  the  graveside.  Amongst 
the  company  that  stood  there  was  one  poor  woman, 
who  asked  permission  to  lay  a  bunch  of  violets  on  his 


58       CITY    TEMPLE    SERMONS 

coffin.  He  was  "  only  a  man,"  but  to  her  he  was  a 
man  of  men;  he  had  saved  her  from  a  fate  that  was 
worse  than  death ;  she  associated  him  with  the  best  she 
knew  of  heaven  and  of  God.  That  woman  is  Hving; 
that  man  is  dead.  Can  he  die  ?  "  Only  a  man  " — but 
that  man  was  Hugh  Price  Hughes. 

"  Only  a  man."  Man  is  a  fragment  of  divinity, 
and  he  never  can  forfeit  his  origin.  "  Only  a  man  " — 
but  we  must  take  each  man  at  his  real  value.  How 
much  of  God  does  a  man  contain  ?  That  is  the  way  in 
which  to  measure  his  humanity.  "  Only  a  man  " — 
may  he  never  cease  to  be  a  man,  too,  when  his  manhood 
towers  up  and  up  till  it  touches  God,  and  reveals  God. 
We  are  mistaken  when  we  try  to  draw  any  line  between 
that  humanity  and  the  God  that  created  it.  Moreover, 
manhood  overlaps.  None  of  us  liveth  to  himself,  nor 
can,  even  if  he  wants  to.  You  are  the  trustee,  not  only 
of  your  own  life,  but  of  other  lives.  When  you  re- 
fuse to  serve,  you  are  serving  all  the  same,  causes  bad 
or  good.  When  you  are  standing  for  the  wrong  you 
are  struggling  against  the  right,  and  lives  you  never 
saw  are  the  worse  for  the  life  you  are  living.  Every 
man  sends  the  roots  of  his  being  deep  into  the  total  life 
of  humanity.  Here  are  we,  a  great  company,  rep- 
resentatives of  all  humanity  that  has  ever  been  or  ever 
lived.  What  I  say  of  the  congregation  as  a  whole,  I 
say  of  the  weakest  and  the  least  influential  man  in  it. 
In  a  sense,  all  humanity  has  come  to  a  focus  in  you ; 
in  a  sense,  God  has  spoken  to  humanity  through  what 
you  are.  We  cannot  cover  much  of  the  territory  of 
another  man's  being,  but  we  cover  some,  and  you 
measure  the  greatness  of  a  man's  manhood  by  the 
amount  that  he  is  able  to  do  for  lives  other  than  his 


ONLYAMAN  69 

own.  How  much  of  God  have  you  brought  to  bear 
upon  the  total  life  of  humanity?  Now,  judged  by  the 
standard  that  we  have  been  raising,  how  much  of  God 
did  Mr.  Gladstone  bring  into  the  life  of  England? 
"  Only  a  man  " — but  I  do  not  wish  to  separate  him 
from  what  I  know  of  God.  How  much  did  Mr.  Spur- 
geon  bring,  how  much  did  Dr.  Parker  bring,  how  much 
did  Hugh  Price  Hughes  bring  ?  "  Only  a  man  " — 
cease  talking  about  mankind  as  though  it  were  some- 
thing different  from  Deity.  The  difference  between 
man  and  God  is  a  difference  not  in  kind,  but  in  moral 
height.  From  the  side  of  God  there  is  no  line  drawn 
between  humanity  and  Deity  at  all. 

Now  this  will  help  you  when  you  come  to  deal  with 
such  questions  as  that  now  before  us.  Jesus  is  only  a 
man,  but  He  is  the  Man  of  men ;  Jesus  has  enfolded 
humanity.  His  is  the  only  life  that  you  can  say 
covers  the  whole  territory  of  humanity.  None  other 
could  have  spoken  as  Jesus  did  without  blasphemy. 
He  stood  for  God  when  He  looked  at  men,  and  those 
who  stood  nearest  to  Him  were  compelled  involuntarily 
to  ask  themselves :  "  What  manner  of  man  is  this  ? 
Never  man  spake  like  this  man ;  He  has  the  words  of 
eternal  life."  We  have  read  in  our  lesson  this  morn- 
ing of  the  feeling  with  which  the  disciples,  even  him 
whom  we  are  accustomed  to  call  the  doubter,  regarded 
One  whom  they  addressed  as  Master  and  Lord.  Do 
you  think  that  the  disciples  who  first  saw  Christ 
thought  of  Him  as  you  and  I  think  of  Him  to-day? 
Nothing  of  the  sort.  Their  creed  was  never  imposed 
from  without,  it  sprang  from  within.  Before  ever 
Church  Councils  were  heard  of,  disciples  were  putting 
into  life  and  practice  what  they  knew  of  God  through 


60       CITY    TEMPLE    SERMONS 

Jesus  Christ.  "  Master  and  Lord,"  they  called  Him. 
"  Ye  say  well,  for  so  I  am,"  He  replied.  "  Master  and 
Lord,"  but  "  only  a  man."  "  Shew  us  the  Father, 
and  we  shall  be  satisfied."  "  I  and  My  Father  are 
one." 

The  vision  of  God  which  Jesus  brought  to  these  men 
in  the  upper  room,  which  changed  all  their  life,  their 
history,  their  character,  their  conduct,  holds  for  all 
time.  The  worst  man  as  well  as  the  best  recognises  it. 
When  you  think  of  God  you  are  really  thinking  of  the 
character  of  Jesus  enthroned  at  the  heart  of  the  uni- 
verse. You  never  can  dissociate  the  two.  All  you 
know  or  think  you  know  of  the  Father  you  have  seen  in 
looking  into  the  face  of  the  Son.  Put  theology  from 
you ;  let  the  Man  stand  for  his  full  value  as  you  draw 
it  from  the  New  Testament ;  and  when  you  have  asked 
yourself  the  question,  "What  think  ye  of  Christ?" 
can  it  be  that  you  can  answer  in  any  other  terms  than 
those  of  the  doubter  when  he  saw  Him  again — the 
very  same,  the  Jesus  of  Galilee,  "  My  Lord  and  my 
God  "  ?  The  humanity  of  Christ  rises  up — ^not  that 
He  had  to  climb  there,  He  was  there — until  it  becomes 
Deity  to  us,  and  we  cannot,  if  we  would,  separate  our 
conception  of  the  humanity  of  Christ  from  our  con- 
fidence in  His  Godhead. 

This  is  a  matter  of  simple,  every-day  experience. 
Let  me  state  it  in  another  way.  Supposing  you  had 
never  heard  of  such  a  man  as  Christ,  reigning  for  and 
through  and  over  humanity,  humanity  would  be  asking 
for  Him  to-day.  This  is  exactly  what  you  are  looking 
for.  We  have  never  seen  a  Man  but  once.  I  have 
seen  many  attempts  at  manhood,  but  I  have  never  seen 
a  Man  save  in  the  New   Testament.     "  Behold  the 


ONLYAMAN  61 

man  " — the  only  one.  When  I  have  said  that,  Hke 
Thomas,  I  have  cried  out,  "  My  Lord  and  my  God." 
Fulness  of  the  stature  of  manhood  brings  me  God,  all 
the  God  I  am  capable  of  receiving,  and  still  the  Christ, 
who  is  the  Humanity  of  God,  is  looking  up  into  the  face 
of  the  Father.  To  all  eternity  it  must  be  so.  Down 
with  your  metaphysics,  lift  the  devotion  of  the  heart — 
our  Man  to  all  eternity,  our  King,  our  Master,  our  Gate- 
way into  God,  our  God. 

That  this  has  been  echoed  in  all  experience  when  it 
has  reached  its  highest  needs  no  proof.  Now  I  want 
to  make  an  appeal  on  the  strength  of  it.  There 
are  men  in  this  church  who  think  less  of  Christ  than 
I  do;  and  the  reason  we  are  here  this  morning  is  to 
try  to  make  you  think  as  we  do.  Supposing  Pilate 
and  Thomas  could  have  met  and  joined  hands,  and 
Pilate  in  a  moment  of  penitence  could  have  said :  "  I 
have  by  my  cowardice  slain  a  man,  the  grandest  man 
I  ever  saw."  And  Thomas  could  have  answered : 
"  True,  you  did,  and  I  loved  that  man,  loved  him 
so  that  I  wanted  to  go  and  die  with  Him,  but 
I  deserted  Him  and  fled  in  His  moment  of  need. 
We  are  both  criminals,  Pilate,  you  and  I;  let  us  join 
hands.  I  have  discovered  something  for  you,  I  have 
seen  Him ;  He  is  my  Lord  and  my  God.  He  and  He 
only  it  is  who  is  the  answer  to  my  need  and  the 
Saviour  from  my  sin."  There  was  a  new  experience 
bom  then;  the  perfect  humanity  was  discovered  that 
redeemed  ours. 

**  If  Jesus  Christ  is  a  man. 
And  only  a  man,  I  say. 
That  of  all  mankind  I  cleave  to  Him, 
And  to  Him  will  I  cleave  alway. 


62        CITY    TEMPLE    SERMONS 

"  But  if  Jesus  Christ  is  God, 
And  the  only  God,  I  swear, 
I  will  follow  Him  through  heaven  and  hell, 
The  earth,  the  sea,  and  the  air." 

For  that  Saviour  has  never  failed  mankind.  The  ex- 
perience that  was  born  in  the  upper  room,  in  the  ejacu- 
lation compelled  from  the  breast  of  a  man  who  loved 
and  thought  he  had  lost  his  Lord,  has  never  failed 
humanity  since,  has  never  been  absent.  Observe  that 
the  greatest  holiness,  the  grandest  nobleness,  the  sub- 
limest  achievement  of  humanity  at  its  best,  has  been 
associated  with  that  view  of  Jesus  Christ  of  Nazareth. 
We  are  asking  daily  for  a  Saviour,  in  sin  and  in  sor- 
row, and  in  human  problems  and  in  human  need,  and 
the  Christ  who,  nineteen  hundred  years  ago,  was  so 
precious  to  men  has  still  power  to  compel  the  adoration 
and  trust  and  love  as  none  of  the  sons  of  men  has 
ever  done  or  can  do. 

"  Only  a  man."  Now,  put  Gladstone  beside  this 
Man ;  put  Hugh  Price  Hughes  beside  this  Man ;  put 
Charles  Haddon  Spurgeon  beside  this  Man,  and  Joseph 
Parker  in  his  dying  moment  beside  this  Man,  and  lis- 
ten what  they  have  to  tell  you.  The  first-named 
preacher,  dying,  said :  "  Put  on  my  coffin,  '  Thou,  O 
Christ,  art  all  I  want.'  "  And  the  last  said  :  "  My  love 
to  my  Jesus  all  the  time."  Galilee  does  not  hold  Him 
now,  nor  can ;  and  no  tomb  was  ever  invented  that  could 
enclose  the  Christ,  and  death  could  not  enchain  Him. 
He  lives.  Because  He  lives  humanity  shall  never  die. 
It  is  pleading  at  the  throne  of  God. 

"  The  healing  of  His  seamless  dress 
Is  by  our  beds  of  pain  ; 


ONLY    A    MAN  63 

We  touch  Him  in  life's  throng  and  press, 
And  we  are  whole  again. 

"  Through  Him  the  first  fond  prayers  are  said, 
Our  lips  of  childhood  frame  ; 
The  last  low  whispers  of  our  dead 
Are  burdened  with  His  name. 

"  We  may  not  climb  the  heavenly  steeps 

To  bring  the  Lord  Christ  down  ; 

In  vain  we  search  the  lowest  deeps, 

For  Him  no  depths  can  drown  ; 

*'  But  warm,  sweet,  tender,  even  yet, 
A  present  help  is  He, 
And  faith  has  still  its  Olivet 
And  love  its  Galilee." 

Here  is  a  stupendous  fact,  never  to  be  explained 
away.  For  this  Jesus  in  whom  we  trust  conquers. 
Come,  you  who  don't  beHeve  in  Him,  is  it  Jesus?  If 
not,  who  is  it?  If  we  are  believing  in  a  lie  that  still 
conquers,  that  makes  men  holy,  but  a  lie  all  the  same — 
then  God  help  us;  for  the  whole  universe  is  wrong. 
But  it  is  not  wrong.  "  Behold  the  Man  that  sitteth 
upon  the  throne." 


VI 
GOD'S  REMEDY  FOR  SIN 

He  hath  made  Him  to  be  sin  for  us,  who  knew  no   sin  ; 
that  we  tnight  be  made  the  righteousness  of  God   in    Him. 

— 2  Cor.  V.  21. 

ET  us  attempt  a  retranslation  and  a  paraphrase 
of  that  passage.  The  translation  first,  and 
following  the  order  of  the  clauses  in  the 
Greek — "  Him  who  knew  no  sin,  He  made  to  be 
sin  in  our  behalf,  that  we  might  become  the 
righteousness  of  God  in  Him."  The  text  gains 
a  little  in  clearness  of  statement  and  in  force  by 
this  way  of  arranging  its  clause  and  the  substitution 
of  words.  Now  the  paraphrase  :  "  By  the  will  of  God, 
Christ  can  so  deal  with  human  sin  that  the  responsi- 
bility for  it  can  as  it  were  be  transferred  from  us  to 
Him,  and  that  we,  being  freed  from  the  burden  of 
guilt,  may  rise  into  the  righteousness  of  God,  which 
is  already  His." 

That  is  a  stupendous  thing  to  say.  If  my  reading 
of  the  text  be  right,  we  are  justified  in  saying  that  in 
these  few  words  we  have  a  complete  statement  of  the 
Christian  doctrine  of  atonement.  I  know  of  no  other 
sentence  on  the  same  subject  in  the  New  Testament 
which  says  so  much  in  so  few  words  as  this  wonderful 
sentence  written  from  the  experience  of  St.  Paul.  I 
am  well  aware  that  this  passage,  and  kindred 
passages    dealing    with    this    subject    in    the    New 

04 


GOD'S    REMEDY    FOR    SIN        65 

Testament,  are  a  standing  difficulty  to  many  minds, 
religious  and  non-religious,  both  in  the  pew  and 
in  the  pulpit.  I  have  known  preachers  to  say  that 
they  felt  a  great  difficulty  in  preaching  the  Atone- 
ment, because  they  were  not  able  to  find  a  place  for  it  in 
their  own  experience,  and  I  remember  once  being  told 
by  a  brother  minister  about  a  layman  (permit  the 
word)  of  high  character  and  influence  in  the  Church, 
who  said  to  him,  after  a  sermon  on  the  doctrine  of  the 
Atonement,  "  I  wish  I  could  go  with  you  in  what  you 
have  said,  but  I  do  not  really  feel  that  I  need  a  doc- 
trine of  Atonement ;  I  have  tried  to  live  for  the  greater 
part  of  my  days  as  well  as  I  knew  how,  I  have  dealt 
justly  with  my  fellows,  and  I  think  I  love  Jesus 
Christ,  who  is  Lord  of  All,  but  I  would  love  Him  just 
as  much  if  you  never  preached  any  doctrine  of  Atone- 
ment at  all,  and  really  it  has  no  significance  for  me." 
Probably  you  will  think  that  the  speaker  must  have 
been  in  type  a  Pharisee.  He  was  not.  He  was  a  good 
man.  I  have  known  many  to  say,  "  I  admire  the 
Christian  ethic.  It  stands  first,  it  appeals  to  the  human 
conscience,  it  is  the  ideal  for  individual  manhood;  but 
this  doctrine  is  not  ethical,  and  it  is  not  reasonable.  In 
fact,  it  is  immoral  to  ask  any  other  being  to  bear  my 
sins." 

If  there  be  any  persons  here  of  this  way  of  thinking, 
my  words  are  not,  in  the  first  place,  intended  for  you, 
and  yet  I  should  wish  them  to  appeal  to  you,  too.  They 
are  intended  for  those  who  are  conscious  that  nothing 
but  the  Christian  evangel  of  the  Atonement  can  reach 
their  experience,  and  what  I  should  like  the  rest  of  you 
to  do  is  to  arrange  yourselves  alongside  the  sinner,  and 
try  to  see  with  his  eyes  and  feel  with  his  heart;  then 


00        CITY    TEMPLE    SERMONS 

see  whether  there  be  not  something  in  the  Gospel  of 
the  Cross  of  Christ  that  you  never  saw  before.  I  am 
speaking  to  those^  then,  who  are  conscious  of  moral 
failure  when  I  say  this — that  the  Atonanent,  in  a  very 
real  sense,  is  the  whole  of  Christianity.  Take  it  away 
and  you  have  nothing  left,  no  Gospel  and  no  evangel. 
This  is  a  strong  statement,  and  requires  justification. 
You  shall  have  it. 

To  begin  with,  it  is  often  said  that,  nowadays,  men 
do  not  appear  to  exhibit  the  sense  of  sin  as  they  did  in 
an  earlier  day.  We  read  about  the  thousands  who 
flocked  to  hear  the  fiery  eloquence  of  George  White- 
field,  and  we  are  told  that  with  strong  crying  and  tears 
they  entered  the  kingdom  of  God,  convinced  that  His 
message  of  the  Saviourhood  of  Christ,  the  atonement 
wrought  by  Him,  was  the  first  and  most  necessary 
thing  for  every  man  who  would  enter  into  eternal  life. 
Some  of  you  are  old  enough  to  remember  when  Mr. 
Spurgeon  first  came  preaching  in  the  great  metropolis. 
The  same  thing  took  place.  If  ever  there  was  an  un- 
compromising preacher  of  the  Cross,  it  was  Mr.  Spur- 
geon, and  men  came  in  multitudes  to  that  Cross,  be- 
lieving in  the  Gospel  of  a  crucified  Saviour  as  the  first 
necessity  to  their  spiritual  being.  Was  it  not  Mr.  Glad- 
stone who  said  that  he  noticed  since  that  day  a  certain 
decrease  in  the  sense  of  sin?  That  humble-minded 
statesman,  grand  Christian  man  as  he  was,  deplored 
this  tendency,  and  declared  that  the  first  thing  preach- 
;  ers  of  the  Gospel  ought  to  address  themselves  to  was 
the  task  of  awakening  the  sense  of  sin.  Dr.  R.  W, 
Dale  said  he  feared  the  difference  between  a  past  gen- 
eration and  this  was  largely  to  be  comprised  in  the  fact 
that  men  do  not  now  fear  God ;  they  speculate  about 


GOD'S    REMEDY    FOR    SIN        CV 

Him  instead.  Be  this  as  it  may,  I  am  rather  indined  to 
question  the  statement  that  the  sense  of  sin  is  feebler 
than  it  used  to  be.  Admitting  that  there  are  thousands 
and  tens  of  thousands  in  London  who  care  nothing 
at  all  about  religion  or  Christ,  I  am  perfectly  sure  I  am 
within  the  mark  when  I  say  that  both  within  and 
without  the  Church  there  are  more  men  with  a  burning 
sense  of  sin  than  any  preacher  or  all  preachers  put 
together  will  reach  within  the  next  week.  The  sense 
of  sin  has  changed  its  mode  of  expression ;  but  it  is  not 
gone ;  it  is  real  and  burning,  and  the  need  to  which  it 
gives  rise  is  as  great  as  ever. 

Let  me  try  to  illustrate.  There  sits  in  the  City  Tem- 
ple this  morning  a  man  of  high  repute,  perhaps,  in  the 
metropolis ;  he  has  everything  that  this  world  can  give 
him,  humanly  speaking.  He  is  rolling  in  wealth,  he  is 
a  man  of  great  personal  influence,  with  power  over 
the  bodies  and  minds  of  men.  You  call  him  fortunate, 
perhaps  you  envy  him  a  little ;  there  may  be  some  here 
who  would  wish  to  change  places  with  him.  Do  not 
wish  it  any  more.  He  is  suffering  the  tortures  of  hell, 
and  this  is  the  reason  why.  Years  ago,  when  he  was 
first  climbing  to  success,  he  married  a  young  wife,  who 
loved  him  above  all  else  in  this  world,  and  he  was  will- 
ing to  give  her  everything  in  return  but  kindness.  He 
treated  her  cruelly,  brutally,  with  that  coldness  which 
is  worse  than  hate ;  he  broke  her  heart  and  he  killed 
her.  Now  he  is  drawing  towards  the  evening  of  Ufe, 
when  he  has  obtained  everything  he  ever  tried  for,  he 
finds  how  little  it  is  worth,  and  he  wishes  that  the 
tender  grace  of  a  day  that  is  dead  might  come  back 
again  to  him.  That  man  is  as  much  a  murderer  as  any 
criminal  who  was  executed  in  England  this  week.    Pity 


68        CITY    TEMPLE    SERMONS 

him;  do  not  denounce.  The  horror  of  the  situation  is 
this :  Whether  there  be  any  Gospel,  any  Christ,  any 
God,  or  no,  he  is  doomed  to  torture  until  the  grave 
closes  over  him.  Conscience  has  told  him  something, 
and  nothing  will  rid  him  from  that  dread  enemy.  What 
do  you  make  of  that  ?  You  may  give  it  what  name  you 
please,  but  it  is  the  sense  of  sin,  even  though  it  be 
awakened  by  only  one  dread  fact  in  the  past  life.  Sin 
is  not  only  a  Bible  word,  not  only  a  pulpit  word ;  it  is 
a  newspaper  word,  a  Stock  Exchange  word,  a  Fleet 
Street  word,  and  the  thing  for  which  it  stands  is  a 
very  present  experience  in  the  life  of  every  man  and 
woman.  You  know,  without  preachers,  what  it  is  to 
suffer  because  of  sin — your  own  or  other  people's. 

Now,  take  another  instance.  Here  is  a  man  whose 
lot  of  life  is  so  different  from  him  whom  I  have  de- 
scribed that  there  can  be  no  comparison  between  them ; 
there  can  only  be  contrast.  This  man  started  life  high 
in  the  social  scale.  He  has  come  down,  and  done  it  by 
his  own  fault.  He  has  flung  away  his  opportunities; 
He  has  destroyed  the  peace  of  those  who  loved  him 
best.  It  may  be  that  he  has  broken  his  mother's  heart, 
and  brought  down  his  father's  grey  hairs  in  sorrow  to 
the  grave.  Mark  him  as  he  sits  near  you,  shabbily 
dressed,  unkempt,  hopeless-looking,  the  fire  in  his  eye 
dimmed,  his  manhood  gone.  H  you  were  to  talk  to 
such  a  man  about  sin,  he  might  be  impatient,  but  if 
you  tell  him  that  he  has  made  his  bed,  and  must  lie  on 
it,  he  will  bow  his  head  in  shame,  for  he  knows  that  it 
is  true.  What  do  you  call  that?  If  there  never  were  a 
preacher  of  the  Gospel,  there  is  something  worth 
preaching  to  in  that  man. 

Close  by  him  is  another.    You  have  pitied  the  poor 


GOD'S    REMEDY    FOR    SIN        09 

unfortunate ;  here  is  one  whom  you  may  pity  more. 
He  is  cursed  with  success,  in  that  the  foundation  of 
that  success  was  laid  in  falsehood.  Years  ago  he  got 
his  first  opportunity  by  telling  a  black  lie;  he  has  suc- 
ceeded, but  if  he  could^  just  put  the  clock  back,  and 
start  again,  he  would  give  you  all  his  success.  You 
would  be  welcome  to  it,  but  he  cannot  get  rid  of  the 
success.  Other  people  are  concerned  beside  him.  He 
would  not  care  to  publish  to  the  world — and  it  would 
be  no  use  to  publish — what  he  was  and  what  he  is.  He 
keeps  away  from  churches,  and  he  has  nothing  to  do 
with  religion,  for  he  won't  play  the  hypocrite.  He  feels 
perfectly  helpless.  That  which  is  done  is  done,  that 
which  is  written  is  written,  and  he  is  a  miserable  man 
to-day. 

With  another  instance,  I  cease  illustration,  for  my 
point  is  almost  complete.  There  is  another  here  who 
fights  a  battle  with  a  propensity  the  very  existence  of 
which  is  humiliation.  He  won  a  victory  this  morning 
over  his  Apollyon,  but  he  knows  that  to-morrow  morn- 
ing the  battle  has  to  be  fought  over  again.  He  is 
wrestling  with  a  demon  the  existence  of  which  none  of 
his  friends  suspect.  Oh,  pity  the  man  with  a  foul  and 
secret  sin  !  He  knows  what  it  is  to  be  wretched,  and  his 
cry  of  despairing  agony  sometimes  rises  up  to  a  seem- 
ingly silent  heaven.  Is  there  any  help  for  such  as  he  ? 
All  these  things  may  exist.  In  every  case  it  is  the  sense 
of  sin,  without  much  thought  of  God.  This  is  a  re- 
markable thing,  but  it  is  true.  Men  can  be  tortured  by 
conscience  without  thinking  whence  conscience  comes ; 
and,  yet,  when  they  do  associate  it  with  the  thought  of 
God,  they  become  at  first  more  dreadful,  and  after- 
wards more  hopeful.     When  they  say,  as  poor  David 


70       CITY    TEMPLE    SERMONS 

said  after  his  great  fall,  "  Against  Thee,  and  Thee  only, 
have  I  sinned,"  there,  though  perhaps  they  suspect 
it  not,  is  the  first  dawning  of  deliverance.  Dr.  Parker, 
in  his  pulpit,  once  gave,  in  his  dramatic  fashion,  a 
description  of  sin  that  I  have  never  heard  equalled — it 
makes  one  shiver  to  think  of  it.  It  was  a  raised  hand, 
a  clenched  fist,  and  a  blow  in  the  face  of  God.  God 
has  to  do  with  the  conscience,  whether  you  know  it  or 
not,  and  if  conscience  be  not  always  the  voice  of  God, 
it  certainly  is  in  the  cases  I  have  detailed.  Sin  is  a 
fact,  and  the  consciousness  of  sin  is  a  fact,  and  these 
things  give  rise  to  a  great  problem,  a  dual  problem, 
which  I  shall  set  before  you — first,  the  demand  for  re- 
lease from  association  with  the  fact  of  sin ;  secondly, 
the  opportunity  for  living  the  higher  life. 

I.  The  awful  thing  about  sin  is  not  the  punishment 
it  entails,  but  the  guilt  that  it  brings.  And  yet  I  would 
not  make  light  about  the  punishment.  The  man  who 
speaks  bravely  and  boldly  about  bearing  his  own  bur- 
den, and  the  penalty  of  his  own  sin,  is  talking  of  he 
knows  not  what.  You  cannot  offer  to  bear  the  pen- 
alty of  your  own  sin.  There  is  no  ratio  between  sin 
and  punishment.  If  you  were  penitent  to  all  eternity, 
you  would  be  as  guilty  as  you  are  this  morning.  Pun- 
ishment does  not  take  away  sin ;  you  remain  associated 
with  the  fact  just  the  same.  Moreover,  nobody  can  be 
punished  for  your  sin — no,  not  Christ.  There  is  not  a 
passage  in  the  New  Testament  which  tells  you  that 
Jesus  was  punished  instead  of  you.  He  could  not  be, 
for  He  had  not  sinned.  What  my  text  tells  you  is  that 
He  suffered  instead  of  you,  and  that  is  where  the  re- 
demption consists.  Again,  repentance  which  is  repen- 
tance in  fear  of  punishment  is  unworthy  of  the  name; 


GOD'S    REMEDY    FOR    SIN        71 

it  is  something  else,  I  trow,  that  in  every  case  is  really 
at  the  bottom  of  the  feeling.  You  want  to  get  rid  of 
associations  with  sin,  but  that  is  just  what  the  world 
does  not  believe  you  ever  can ;  it  is  a  seemingly  im- 
possible thing.  It  is  an  extraordinary  fact  that  the 
most  difficult  thing  for  any  preacher  to  do  is  to  con- 
vince a  man  of  the  world  that  there  is  forgiveness  at 
all. 

"  The  Moving  Finger  writes  ;  and,  having  writ, 
Moves  on  :  nor  all  your  Piety  nor  Wit 

Shall  lure  it  back  to  cancel  half  a  Line, 
Nor  all  your  Tears  wash  out  a  Word  of  it." 

Yet  somehow  the  human  heart  protests  against  that 
dread  sentence,  and  the  cry  is  continually  going  up 
from  the  victim  of  propensity.  "  Oh,  for  some 
power  to  come  into  my  life  and  save  me  from  being 
what  I  am,  and  thinking  what  I  think,  and  doing  what 
I  do !  "  and  a  cry  still  more  agonising  from  the  man 
who  has  sinned  away  his  opportunities.  "  Oh,  that 
that  which  has  been  might  be  as  though  it  never  had 
been  !  Oh,  that  I  could  wake  and  find  that  the  past  was 
a  dream,  and  gone  forever !  " 

II.  There  is  the  demand  which  arises  for  a  new  op- 
portunity for  a  higher  life.  This  again  is  most  diffi- 
cult to  believe.  The  verdict  of  society  is  against  it, 
the  testimony  of  all  experience  is  against  it.  Per- 
haps in  the  pew  beside  you  there  sits  a  woman  who 
has  sinned  away  her  purity.  Observe  how  society 
treats  her.  I  do  not  say  society  is  wrong;  it  has  to 
protect  itself,  and  this  is  the  verdict  of  conscience  upon 
sin  that  she  knew  was  sin  when  it  was  committed.  But 
how  hopeless  it  seems  for  her  to  try  to  live  a  higher 
Ufe  !     Her  sisters  may  pose  as  patterns  of  probity,  they 


72       CITY    TEMPLE    SERMONS 

may  become  influences  for  good  in  the  world,  and  their 
children  may  look  up  to  them  with  hope  and  confi- 
dence ;  but  she  must  not  pose  as  anything  but  a  humble 
penitent  all  her  days.  The  Magdalen  must  never  try 
to  be  the  saint,  or  society  will  remind  her  that,  after 
all,  she  is  only  a  sinner.  The  worst  penalty  of  sin  is  to 
be  shut  off  and  shut  down  from  the  attainment  of  holi- 
|/ness;  it  seems  out  of  character  for  certain  kinds  of  ex- 
perience to  attempt.  And  then  there  is  a  man  here  who 
sinned  against  society,  and  society  found  him  out  and 
then  cast  him  out.  Let  him  try  to  get  back.  He  talks 
about  a  chance  for  a  higher  life.  Where  does  the 
chance  come  in  ?  I  do  not  say  society  is  wrong,  but  it 
is  certain  to  point  the  finger  at  him  forever  while  he 
moves  in  and  out  amongst  men.  We  say  to  one  an- 
other. That  is  the  man  who  stole  in  such  a  year,  and 
got  three  months,  or  a  year,  or  five  years,  as  the  case 
may  have  bf^en.  Talk  about  the  higher  life  for  him ! 
Let  him  appear  in  a  pulpit,  and  see  what  you  will  do 
with  him.  The  evil  deed  will  cling  to  him  all  his  days. 
Yet  the  cry  is  going  up,  "  Cannot  I  have  the  chance  to 
live  the  nobler  life  that  I  once  had  the  opportunity  for, 
and  sinned  away  ?  "  There  is  a  paper  in  existence,  of 
which  you  may  have  heard,  called  T.  P.'s  Weekly. 
I  got  it  a  while  ago  to  read  a  certain  article  in  it  on 
George  Eliot.  I  think  it  was  the  best  article  on  that 
gifted  authoress  I  ever  read.  The  writer  of  the  article 
said  that  one  thing  was  constant  in  George  Eliot's 
psychological  writings — her  insistence  upon  the  Neme- 
sis of  justice.  She  never  seemed  to  give  a  gleam  or  a 
gUmmer  of  hope.  Take  her  Hetty  Sorrel,  in  "Adam 
Bede."  Poor  Hetty  was  more  a  fool  than  a  sinner — a 
sinner  because  a  fool.    George  Eliot  trampled  upon  her, 


GOD'S    REMEDY    FOR    SIN        13 

crushed  her,  broke  her ;  from  the  first  page  to  the  last 
you  don't  see  that  there  is  the  sHghtest  offer  of  relief, 
not  a  word  for  poor  Hetty.  Now,  who  was  Hetty  ?  I 
think  we  are  justified  in  supposing  that  it  was  George 
Eliot  herself,  and  her  verdict  upon  her  own  sin  is  writ- 
ten large  in  her  books.  She  did  not  believe  in  the  new 
opportunity  or  the  higher  life.  She  believed  that  you 
must  dree  your  weird,  take  your  punishment,  and, 
once  you  have  taken  it,  be  condemned  to  the  lower 
plane  forever.  She  makes  one  of  her  characters  say, 
in  words  that  are  a  wail,  "  It  is  not  worth  doing  wrong 
for — nothing  ever  is  in  this  world."  Here,  then,  is  the 
demand  of  the  sinful  heart  and  conscience.  Let  me 
see  if  I  can  meet  it. 

Your  sin  can  be  taken  from  you  as  though  it  had 
never  been.  The  Gospel  that  we  have  to  preach  is  the 
declaration  of  Christ's  power  of  so  dealing  with  your 
sin  that  it  is  His,  and  not  yours.  Permit  me  an  exag- 
geration for  the  moment.  There  are  some  truths  so 
big  that  you  cannot  state  them  until  you  use  hyper- 
bole. It  is  as  though  you  were  to  say,  "  I  am  not 
guilty ;  the  Sinless  One  is."  So  complete  is  the  deliv- 
erance that  its  moral  value  is  undoubted,  instantaneous ; 
a  man  can  stand  straight  up  on  his  feet  and  say,  justi- 
fied in  the  sight  of  God,  "  My  redemption  has  meant 
the  passion  of  Deity;  my  Redeemer  has  the  assets  of 
my  character.  My  broken  life  is  His,  and  the  way  of 
opportunity  has  opened  before  me  because  of  the  holi- 
ness of  Christ,  as  well  as  His  passion." 

Why  don't  I  explain  it?  I  cannot;  nobody  can.  I 
have  my  ideas  about  it  which  no  theory  could  ever  ex- 
haust. "  Him  who  knew  no  sin  God  made  to  be  sin 
on  our  behalf  that  we  might  become  the  righteousness 


74 


CITY    TEMPLE    SERMONS 


of  God  in  Him."     God  is  not  reconciled  to  us  by  the 

suffering  of  Deity;  there  is  no  passage  in  the   New 

Testament  which  says  so.    We  are  reconciled  to  God; 

and,  from  the  first  page  of  the  New  Testament  to  the 

last,  the  Gospel  of  reconciliation  is  the  theme  of  the 

u  /Master  and  the  prophet  and  the  apostle  alike.    God  was 

^.vvw      *'_'^  Christ  reconciling  the  world  unto  Himself,'  not  im- 

•C-vMN/Ma-^  puting  unto  us  our  trespasses.     If  ever  there  was  a 

'^T^^  '     Gospel    which    just    met    the    need    that    human    ex- 

;tf^Lv<^  perience    most    needs     it     is     that     Gospel     of     the 

J'Jt\^vl'''    Cross  of    Christ.      Let  those  who  have  sinned  sin  no 

4    -TT     "i^  more.    The  death  of  Christ  is  not  an  excuse  for  human 

H       Js*rs»^^" '    "^y'  ^^  ^^  God's  verdict  upon  it.      The    Eternal 

^^*^       *      llighteousness  spake  in  the  suffering  of  the  innocent 


vv* 


it 


when  Jesus  died  on  Calvary,  but  it  means  that  you  were 
set  free,  as  free  as  the  best  of  humankind,  and  the 
blackest  sinner  may  become  the  brightest  saint. 
"  Though  your  sins  be  as  scarlet,  they  shall  be  as  white 
as  snow ;  though  they  be  red  like  crimson,  they  shall  be 
as  wool."  It  would  be  impossible  to  exaggerate  the 
moral  value  of  that  Gospel ;  and  that  cannot  be  un- 
true which  has  such  moral  results.  There  are  some 
men  who  would  remain  bad  all  their  lives  if  they  were 
not  assured  of  such  an  emancipation  as  this.  You 
stand  away  from  your  sin,  and  between  you  and  it  is  a 
great  gulf  fixed.  Then  begins  the  possibility  of  holi- 
ness;  then,  and  not  till  then.  That  Gospel  justifies  it- 
self by  results ;  and  said  I  not  well  in  declaring  that 
the  Atonement  is  there,  the  whole  of  Christianity?  It 
is  its  beginning  and  its  end. 

I  appeal  now  to  two  orders  of  experience — the  first, 
that  mentioned  at  the  beginning — the  man  who  sees 
no  need  for  that  Gospel  in  his  own  case.     Have  you 


^  -*  U^'it^    U     Ptv^      T-Vi^\|u<UU/VUA    (hM/V*jkWui^ 


GOD'S    REMEDY    FOR    SIN        V5 

seen  a  need  for  it  in  anybody  else's,  now?  If  you  feel 
that  you  are  superior  to  it,  that  the  Christ  is  dear  to  you 
without  it,  perhaps  some  day  you  will  see  for  your  own 
sake  deep  into  the  mystery,  and  find  that  you  cannot 
do  without  the  Crucified.  But,  whether  that  day  ever 
comes  or  not,  will  you  stand  alongside  the  sinner  now, 
and,  in  the  sweet  simplicity  of  the  Master  Himself,  be 
prepared  to  affirm  it  for  those  who  do  need  it  ? 

"  Doubtful,  where  I  fain  would  rest, 
Frailest  where  I  seem  the  best. 
Only  strong  for  lack  of  test, 
What  am  I  that  I  should  press 
Special  pleas  of  selfishness. 
Coolly  mounting  into  heaven, 
On  my  neighbour  unforgiven  ?  " 

"  Let  him  that  thinketh  he  standeth  take  heed  lest  he 
fall."  We  have  not  only  to  preach  the  Christ  of  the 
Resurrection  morning-,  but  the  Christ  who  agonised  on 
Calvary,  and  at  that  point  we  touch  a  mystery  so  great 
that  it  would  take  eternity  to  explain,  and  it  is  necessary 
for  every  soul  of  man  born  into  the  world. 

The  second  order  of  experience — need  I  appeal  to 
you  ?  You  are  low  down — get  up !  You  feel  in 
despair — there  is  no  place  for  despair;  for  the  Christ 
is  Master  of  all  moral  records,  as  well  ?s  of  the  world 
of  moral  standards.  You  feel  the  remorse  which  comes 
from  having  lived  a  wrong  life.  Remorse  is  not  re- 
pentance. Lay  hold  upon  eternal  life.  There  is  a  way 
for  you  into  the  highest,  and  that  way  lies  past  the 
Cross  of  Jesus  Christ.    Amen ! 


VII 
THE  MYSTERY  OF  PAIN 

When  thou  passest  through  the  waters,  I  will  be  with  thee. 

— Isaiah  xliii.  2. 

Your  sorrow  shall  be  turned  into  joy. — John  xvi.  20. 

EVERY  generation  has  its  own  way  of  look- 
ing at  the  facts  of  life,  and  its  own 
peculiar  habits  of  thought.  No  man  can 
absolutely  escape  the  influence  of  the  intellectual 
and  spiritual  climate  of  the  times  in  which  he 
lives,  nor  can  he  avoid  asking  the  questions  which 
the  conditions  of  his  time  create,  and  which  other  men 
are  asking  also.  There  is  probably  no  question  more 
characteristic  of  our  generation  than  that  which  we 
have  styled  the  mystery  of  pain.  In  one  sense  it  is  a 
question  that  is  very  old ;  in  another  and  larger  sense 
it  is  a  question  that  is  absolutely  new;  it  is  as  old  as 
human  sorrow,  and  it  is  as  new  as  the  experience  of 
the  youngest  man.  When  we  think  of  experience — the 
experience  into  which  we  are  born,  the  experience  we 
make  for  ourselves — we  are  sometimes  inclined  to  aver 
that  the  question  of  the  mystery  of  pain  never  was  so 
intense  as  it  is  at  the  present  hour,  and  certainly  there 
is  no  question  which  is  more  characteristic  of  our  own 
day  and  generation. 

I  will  give  some  reasons  why  I  believe  the  question  is 
for  us  to-day  so  much  larger  than  it  has  ever  been  in 
the  history  of  the  world.    Within  the  memory  of  some 

7S 


THE    MYSTERY    OP    PAIN        V7 

the  problem  did  not  exist,  at  any  rate,  in  its  intensity 
was  not  so  present  in  fact  to  the  minds  of  men,  though 
it  was  always  in  a  degree  assumed  in  their  experience 
and  intercourse.  For  example,  that  gifted  lady, 
Frances  Power  Cobbe,  in  her  "  Recollections,"  states 
that  she  can  remember  how  unmercifully,  when  she  was 
a  child,  both  animals  and  children  were  flogged  and 
variously  ill-treated  by  those  who  had  them  in  charge; 
not  universally,  but  so  generally  that  it  never  excited 
much  surprise.  We  are  aware,  too,  that  such  crea- 
tions of  Dickens  as  Mr.  Squeers  and  Mr.  Creakle  could 
scarcely  exist  to-day ;  and  such  institutions  as  the  So- 
ciety for  the  Prevention  of  Cruelty  to  Children  (to  ad- 
here to  the  same  line  of  illustration)  are  comparatively 
modern.  To  our  immediate  forefathers  the  problem 
of  pain,  which  is  largely  the  result  of  human  sympathy, 
did  not  exist  in  such  a  degree  as  it  exists  for  us. 

To  go  a  few  generations  farther  back.  In  the  time 
when  Puritanism  was  in  its  grandeur — and,  if  Lord 
Macaulay  is  to  be  believed,  Puritanism  produced  the 
noblest  type  of  character  that  has  ever  been  produced 
in  any  country  and  in  any  age — we  notice  a  certain 
grimness  about  the  noblest  of  the  men  who  represented 
it,  say,  in  the  seventeenth  century,  and,  though  less 
conspicuously,  in  the  sixteenth,  too.  Going  to  Refor- 
mation days,  the  character  of  Sir  Thomas  More  has 
variously  been  commented  upon,  Catholic  though  he 
were,  for  this  reason,  amongst  others,  but  this  one  is 
always  given,  that  he  was  a  kind  and  affectionate 
father,  who  treated  his  children  with  tenderness  more 
like  that  of  a  friend  than  of  a  parent.  We  sometimes 
speak  about  the  good  old  times ;  well,  there  were  times 
in  this  country  when  grandeur  of  character  was  per- 


78       CITY    TEMPLE    SERMONS 

haps  more  conspicuous  than  it  is  to-day,  but  it  is 
perfectly  certain  that  the  sensitiveness  and  sympathy 
and  perplexity  in  the  presence  of  the  problem  of  pain 
did  not  exist  in  previous  ages  of  this  country  as  they 
exist  for  our  experience  at  the  present  hour. 

When  we  go  to  other  civilisations  than  our  own,  and 
especially  those  v^hich  have  played  a  great  part  in  the 
making  of  the  civilisation  in  which  we  live — take,  for 
example,  that  of  ancient  Greece,  which  is  in  some  sense 
typical  and  in  other  sense  unique — we  find  that  the 
problem  is  present  to  the  thinkers  and  poets  who  ex- 
pressed the  spontaneous  feeling  of  the  men  of  their 
days.  But,  while  the  Greek  tragic  poets  could  write 
eloquently  about  the  question  of  pain  and  of  human 
woe,  which  they  attributed  to  the  jealousy  of  the  gods, 
we  notice  one  very  conspicuous  difference  between 
their  way  of  looking  at  the  question  and  the  way  in 
which  we  look  at  it  to-day.  For  a  statement  of  that 
difference  I  would  refer  you  to  the  works  of  Dr. 
Martineau,  who,  in  his  "  Hours  of  Thought,"  points 
out  what  I  suppose  we  all  know  now — that  between 
the  civilisation  of  ancient  Greece  and  that  of  to-day 
there  is  this  difference,  that  in  the  one  pity  for  the 
weak,  oppressed,  and  unfortunate  is  largely  absent,  and 
in  the  other,  with  all  its  faults,  these  things  do  exist, 
and  increasingly  so.  There  were  no  hospitals  in  an- 
cient Greece,  no  homes  for  the  poor,  no  orphanages,  no 
institutions  for  the  lessening  of  human  woe ;  there  were 
no  protests  against  war.  I  think  that  in  the  last  war 
very  largely  the  strength  of  what  we,  for  want  of  a 
better  name,  have  called  the  pro-Boer  agitation  in  this 
country  came  from  the  Christian  hatred  of  war  in  gen- 
eral.   In  ancient  Greece  that  did  not  exist.    With  all 


THE    MYSTERY    OF    PAIN        79 

their  love  of  beauty  and  of  human  perfection  as  they 
conceived  it,  the  Greeks,  while  they  talked  about  pain, 
had  very  little  sympathy  for  those  who  endured  it ;  and, 
therefore,  between  them  and  us  there  is  a  great  gulf 
fixed  in  the  statement  of  the  problem.  In  our  case  it  is 
new,  larger,  more  intense  than  it  was  in  theirs. 

Before  passing  from  this  line  of  illustration,  I  think 
I  ought  to  mention  the  Oriental  religions,  which  have 
been  founded  upon  a  perception  of  human  pain.  The 
greatest  of  these.  Buddhism,  which  includes  a  larger 
number  of  adherents  than  Christianity,  came  into  ex- 
istence simply  and  solely  through  a  perception  of  the 
fact  that  man  is  born  to  trouble  as  the  sparks  fly  up- 
ward. How  did  Orientalism  settle  the  question?  By 
a  selfish  individualism  which,  for  the  sake  of  its  own 
future  and  escape  from  a  dismal  present,  taught  obedi- 
ence to  something  like  the  Christian  law  of  love,  but 
which,  when  we  examine  it,  is  exceedingly  unlike  it. 
Buddhism  has  no  God,  no  future;  its  solution  of  the 
problem  of  pain  is  a  solution  which  was  a  dismal 
pessimism,  and  is  to-day.  There  is  no  answer  to  the 
question  given  in  Orientalism,  which  presents,  on  the 
one  hand,  the  extreme  of  ignoble  quiescence,  and,  on 
the  other,  of  insensate  cruelty. 

Now,  how  is  it  that  we  are  thinking  about  it,  say, 
within  the  last  fifty  years,  in  such  a  degree?  There 
are  several  reasons,  first,  amongst  which  I  place  this, 
that  we  have  discovered  the  solidarity  of  human  ex- 
istence with  that  of  the  creation  at  large.  Another  is 
this :  We  have,  through  years  of  ease  and  tranquillity, 
comparatively  speaking,  come  to  feel  how  arduous  was 
the  exisence  in  which  our  fathers  lived,  and  with  our 
increased  sensibility  has  come  increased  sympathy  and 


80       CITY    TEMPLE    SERMONS 

susceptibility  to  the  problem  of  pain.  Is  it  not  true 
that  with  increase  of  knowledge,  in  our  case,  has,  in 
some  degree,  come  increase  of  sorrow,  too  ?  The  more 
capable  a  man  is  of  reflecting,  the  more  capable  he  is 
of  suffering.  Increased  culture  means  increased 
capacity  for  woe. 

"  We  look  before  and  after 

And  sigh  for  what  is  not ; 
Our  sincerest  laughter 
With  some  pain  is  fraught. 
Our  sweetest  songs  are  those  that  tell 
Of  saddest  thought." 

I  have  a  further  reason  for  believing  that  this  sensi- 
bility of  which  I  speak — a  sensibility  greater  in  this 
generation  than  in  any  other — is  due  to  the  cumulative 
effect  of  the  Christian  Gospel,  But,  because  there  may 
be  some  man  who  will  not  agree  with  me,  I  simply  state 
that  point,  and  leave  it  without  attempting  to  demon- 
strate it.  I  declare  that  if  there  had  never  been  a 
Christ  in  the  world,  and  if  you  had  never  heard  of 
Him,  and  if  there  had  been  no  men  to  live  the  Gospel, 
your  statement  of  the  great  problem  of  human  ill  would 
have  been  no  different  from  that  of  ancient  Greece  or 
of  Oriental  Buddhism.  The  difference  has  been  made 
in  sensibility  by  the  influence  of  the  spirit  of  Christ  in 
the  community  in  which  we  live.  In  a  sense,  then,  our 
statement  of  the  problem  of  pain  has  been  given  to  us 
by  Christ,  and,  were  it  not  for  Jesus  Christ,  the  problem 
would  not  exist  for  us  as  it  does.  If  Christ  creates 
the  problem,  where  shall  we  look  for  the  solution  but  in 
Christ  ? 

We  go  on  now  to  state  the  ways  in  which  the 
problem  shapes  itself  to  our  mind.     First,  I  think  the 


THE    MYSTERY    OF    PAIN        81 

problem  of  pain  has  for  us  a  greater  range  and  in- 
tensity than  it  ever  had  before,  because,  as  I  have 
already  said,  we  have  discovered  our  oneness  with  the 
rest  of  creation.  We  no  longer  speak  as  if  the  world 
were  made  for  man,  and  for  man  alone.  That  would 
be  a  conceited,  ignorant,  and  narrow  view.  Moreover, 
if  the  world  exists  for  man  alone,  and  no  other  sentient 
life  has  a  claim  as  against  ours,  then,  indeed,  there  is 
something  wrong  with  our  moral  nature ;  for  we  re- 
serve our  pity  for  suffering  only  when  it  affects  our- 
selves, and  yet  we  perceive  that  the  whole  creation 
groaneth  and  travaileth  in  pain  together,  too.  Within 
the  last  fifty  years  we  have  found  out  that  in  the 
struggle  for  existence  some  of  the  lower  forms  of 
sentient  life  are  as  heavily  handicapped  as  we.  John 
Stuart  Mill  has  rightly  said  that,  in  truth,  the  very 
things  for  which  we  reprobate,  hang,  and  imprison  one 
another  are  Nature's  everyday  performance.  Recently 
I  happened  to  be  riding  over  the  Brighton  Downs,  and 
scared  away  some  little  creature — a  weasel  or  stoat,  or 
something  of  that  kind — from  its  prey.  I  came  upon 
the  scene  without  knowing  exactly  what  was  going  on. 
Before  I  could  check  my  horse  he  had  placed  his  hoof 
on  a  little  bird  that  was  lying  dying,  and  crushed  out 
the  last  spark  of  life.  I  could  not  help  thinking,  as  I 
took  the  poor  little  thing  into  my  hand.  Here  is  an 
epitome  of  the  problem  of  pain.  If  this  were  the  only 
example  in  the  wide  universe  of  life  ruthlessly  de- 
stroyed, of  fear  and  anguish,  surely  in  the  problem  of 
the  sufferings  of  this  little  feathered  creature  is  the 
whole  question  of  pain  as  it  affects  me  and  the  rest  of 
humanity.  If  I  could  say  anything  about  the  reason 
for  the  suffering  of  that  little  bird,  I  should  have  some- 


82       CITY   TEMPLE    SERMONS 

thing  to  say  about  the  reason  for  the  suffering  of  men, 
and,  conversely,  if  I  can  see  any  reason  in  the  suffering 
of  men,  there  is  something  that  I  can  safely  leave  in 
the  hands  of  God  in  so  far  as  the  suffering  of  the  bird 
is  concerned. 

We  notice,  too,  the  apparent  indiscriminate  incidence 
of  pain,  and  its  apparent  meaninglessness  in  operation. 
Take  that  disaster  in  the  West  Indies  in  1902,  by 
which,  within  the  space  of  a  few  minutes,  30,000  people 
were  hurled  into  eternity — more  than  fell  altogether  in 
the  long  dreary  months  of  the  South  African  War.  We 
cannot  understand  how  it  was  that  good  and  bad  alike, 
apparently,  in  that  doomed  city,  as  in  Sodom  and  Go- 
morrah, were  swept  out  of  existence  by  this  awful 
cataclysm.  One  pathetic  incident  I  remember  reading 
in  the  newspapers  was  this :  At  the  bedside  in  one  of 
the  houses  that  was  entombed  by  the  lava  and  ashes 
from  Mont  Pelee  a  lady  was  kneeling  saying  her 
prayers.  She  was  not  anticipating  the  catastrophe; 
she  was  praying  to  God  for  blessing,  and  apparently 
His  answer  was  to  overwhelm  her  in  destruction.  Per- 
haps in  the  next  street  from  her  was  a  man  who  had 
been  living  in  debauchery.  Good  and  bad  alike,  they 
went  to  a  common  doom,  and  went  without  a  word  of 
warning,  without  time  to  think  or  to  appeal  to  the  great 
Being  who  had  done  it  all.  The  apparent  meaning- 
lessness and  indiscriminateness  of  the  operation  of 
pain  make  the  problem  larger  to  us. 

But,  again,  and  closer  to  our  experience,  is  this :  it 
strikes  at  the  noblest  part  of  our  nature.  That  man 
feels  most  who  is  the  best  man.  The  man  who  is 
noblest  is  the  man  who  is  most  capable  of  suffering. 
Dr.  Parker  said  on  more  than  one  occasion  from  this 


THE    MYSTERY    OF    PAIN         80 

pulpit :  Preach  to  the  broken  h.earts ;  the  man  who  does 
that  is  always  sure  of  a  congregation,  for  there  is  at 
least  one  in  every  pew.  He  may  have  been  right,  he 
may  have  been  wrong,  but  this  is  certain,  that  in  a  con- 
gregation of  the  size  of  this  present  one  there  are  some 
whose  noble  nature  has  been  wounded,  who,  if  they 
had  been  less  capable  of  unselfish  feeling,  would  have 
been  less  capable  of  sorrow  than  they  are  to-day.  The 
man  who  is  able  to  love  unselfishly  and  has  been  treated 
with  ingratitude,  the  man  who  is  able  to  give  himself 
in  loving  sacrifice  for  another,  and  whom  death  robs 
of  the  nearest  and  the  dearest,  knows  something  of  the 
problem  of  pain  which  is  altogether  hidden  from  the 
man  who  lives  for  himself,  to  eat,  drink,  and  be  merry, 
defying  the  death  that  comes  to-morrow.  So  the 
problem  is  larger  because  it  strikes  the  very  noblest 
part  of  human  nature,  and  is  felt  most  keenly  there. 
Lastly,  in  this  statement  of  the  way  in  which  this 
problem  shapes  itself  to  our  mind,  oftentimes  it  seems 
as  though,  if  joy  has  slain  its  thousands,  sorrow  has 
slain  its  ten  thousands.  Where  you  find  a  man  who 
cannot  bear  prosperity,  and  who  has  been  destroyed 
by  it,  you  are  sure  to  find  another  who  has  been  unable 
to  bear  adversity,  and  has  been  made  bitter  by  it. 
Suppose  there  is  only  one  man  in  this  congregation 
whose  life  has  been  ruined,  for  whom  the  whole  crea- 
tion has  been  darkened,  not  through  his  own  fault,  but 
because  of  a  calamity  undeserved,  and  it  has  turned 
him  bitter  and  made  him  to  protest  against  the  order  of 
the  universe — can  you  wonder  at  it?  If  that  man 
alone  were  here  the  problem  exists  for  him,  and  he 
would  feel,  as  many  of  us  do,  most  likely,  in  our  sym- 
pathies with  suffering  humanity,  that  there  was  some- 


84        CITY    TEMPLE    SERMONS 

thing  of  reason  in  Coulson  Kernahan's  way  of  stating 
the  question  when,  in  one  of  his  little  books,  he  makes 
the  whole  human  race  come  together  and  utter  a  chal- 
lenge against  God.  For  in  the  statement  of  the 
mystery  of  pain  we  are  really  lifting  up  our  faces  in 
challenge  to  the  Most  High,  asking  for  some  explana- 
tion of  the  mystery.  For  we  cannot  put  the  blame 
entirely  upon  man.  No  matter  how  much  man  is  to 
blame,  there  is  pain  anterior  to  his  moral  responsibility, 
pain  beneath  it,  pain  beyond  it.  The  problem  of  pain 
is  greater  than  the  range  of  human  moral  depravity. 

Now  I  come  back  to  this  point  at  which  we  started. 
We  must  look  for  answer  just  at  the  place  already  in- 
dicated— the  Cross  of  Jesus  Christ — for  this  reason,  if 
for  none  other,  that  it  is  through  the  preaching  of  the 
Gospel  of  Jesus  Christ  that  the  problem  in  its  present 
form  has  emerged  in  our  day  for  the  non-Christian  as 
well  as  for  the  Christian  man.  But  we  can  narrow  the 
range  a  little,  by  pointing  out  that  we  have  nothing  to 
do  for  the  moment  with  the  problem  of  pain  as  it 
affects  the  lower  creation ;  if  we  can  settle  the  problem 
satisfactorily  in  so  far  as  it  affects  ourselves  we  can 
leave  the  rest  for  the  time  being  in  the  hands  of  the  God 
to  whom  we  have  successfully  appealed. 

Further,  I  would  point  out  that  the  problem  of  pain 
gains  something  to-day  from  the  large  part  which  our 
imagination  plays  in  it.  That  catastrophe  in  the  West 
Indies,  for  instance,  is  not  so  large  as  you  think  it  is, 
and  in  another  sense  it  is  going  on  at  this  moment,  as 
largely  as  it  ever  did.  For  the  whole  of  the  pain  ever 
suffered  by  humanity  since  time  began  is  not  greater 
than  that  of  the  man  who  has  been  capable  of  suffering 
the  most  at  any  one  time.     And  what  man  was  that? 


THE    MYSTERY    OF    PAIN        85 

When  I  come  to  think  of  it,  that  must  have  been  Jesus 
Christ  and  none  other.  When  you  say  30,000  people 
were  hurled  into  eternity  in  a  moment,  what  you  mean 
is  that  30,000  units  were  destroyed ;  and,  whatever  was 
suffered  here  by  the  man  who  suffered  most,  he  suf- 
fered all.  The  problem  of  pain  is  not  greater  in  im- 
mensity than  it  is  in  intensity.  If  you  have  suffered 
as  much  as  any  man  who  ever  lived,  the  whole  problem 
of  pain  is  concentrated  in  your  experience.  That  nar- 
rows the  range  at  once.  For  now  what  we  have  to  do 
is  to  ask  why  any  one  man  should  suffer,  and,  in  asking 
why  any  one  man  should  suffer,  I  take  the  man  who 
suffered  most,  and  if  I  can  give  any  reason  for  his 
suffering  I  have  done  something  to  explain  the  mystery 
of  the  suffering  of  the  whole  creation.  Here,  then, 
opens  out  a  principle  which  will  help  you  a  long  way 
along  the  road  to  a  solution ;  it  is  this : 

Every  human  life  has  a  three-fold  value — a  value  for 
itself,  a  value  for  humanity,  a  value  for  God.  Some  of 
you  will  say  that  is  fairly  obvious;  at  least,  so  far  as 
the  first  is  concerned.  No;  in  one  sense  it  is  not 
obvious  at  all.  Its.  value  for  self — "  but  it  is  not  yet 
made  manifest  what  we  ourselves  shall  be."  Its  value 
for  humanity — that  is  obvious,  for  no  man  liveth  to 
himself.  Its  value  for  God— how  much  that  involves 
I  do  not  know,  for  God's  ways  are  in  the  sea,  and 
where  we  live  to-day  is  but  the  vestibule  of  the  life 
that  is  to  be.  Its  value  for  self— there  is  nothing 
noble,  worthy,  sublime  in  human  character  and  achieve- 
ment but  has  its  roots  in  the  mystery  of  pain.  Will 
any  man  challenge  that  ?  I  defy  him  to  look  upon  the 
field  of  history  and  find  any  man  whom  the  conscious- 
ness of  humanity  has  affirmed  to  be  noble  who  has  not 


86       CITY    TEMPLE    SERMONS 

had  his  discipline  of  struggle  and  pain.  What  is  the 
difference  between  innocence  and  holiness?  Look 
at  that  dear  little  child  sitting  beside  its  mother.  The 
faces  have  a  similarity  in  contour  and  expression,  but 
there  is  a  difference,  too ;  the  innocence  of  the  one  is  not 
the  mellow  tenderness  of  the  other.  Something  has 
been  learned  in  the  journey  of  life  between  innocence 
and  nobleness — the  innocence  of  childhood,  the  noble- 
ness of  womanhood.  What  has  made  the  difference? 
The  difference  has  been  the  battle  of  life,  acquaintance 
with  pain.  Would  you  rather  be  the  child  or  the 
mother?  I  will  answer  the  question  for  you.  You 
would  rather  be  the  mother,  with  the  wisdom  of  the 
mother,  if  you  could  keep  the  heart  of  the  child.  There 
is  the  ideal  of  humanity.  Man  is  at  his  noblest  like  unto 
a  little  child.  Now,  only  once  in  history  have  we  seen 
that  perfectly  done,  but  here  and  there  we  see  it  nearly 
approximated  unto.  There  is  a  relationship  between 
holiness  and  innocence  which  fits  them  for  acquaintance 
with  each  other.  The  saint  and  the  child  are  very  near 
together,  but  the  former  has  been  through  the  furnace 
to  learn  what  the  child-heart  is.  Nowhere  in  the  range 
of  history  have  I  seen  aught  that  is  noble,  sublime,  or 
holy  in  human  character  and  conduct  but  it  has  its 
roots  in  the  mystery  of  pain.  Let  me  speak  to  you, 
especially  to  those  who  are  not  Christians,  and  perhaps 
do  not  intend  to  be — it  is  true  of  you,  too.  The  finest 
man  you  know  to-day,  the  man  you  would  most  wish 
to  resemble,  the  man  who  has  been  of  most  service  to 
your  character,  is  the  man  who  knows  life  in  its  lights 
and  shades,  pleasures  and  pains,  sorrows  and  joys. 
You  do  not  want  to  feel  that  he  is  shallow;  and,  if  he 
is  not,  it  is  because  he  has  been  through  the  waters, 


THE    MYSTERY    OF    PAIN        87 

and  knows  something  of  the  bitterness  as  well  as  the 
pleasantness  of  life — for  life  is  not  all  pain.  Joy  is 
purchased  by  acquaintance  with  pain,  and  in  the 
highest  joy  is  latent  an  experience  of  pain.  Human 
instinct  tells  us  that  must  be  true. 

There  is  the  pain  which  is  the  direct  result  of  wrong- 
doing. While  I  admit  that  this  does  not  explain  the 
whole  of  the  existence  of  pain,  it  explains,  perhaps, 
what  somebody  here  present  feels  to  have  been  the 
most  perplexing  part  of  his  experience.  Here  is  a  man 
with  the  mark  of  Cain  upon  his  brow;  he  looks  sadly 
out  upon  life  because  of  what  might  have  been;  the 
tender  grace  of  a  day  that  is  dead  will  never  come 
back  to  him.  H  I  could  only  remove  the  punishment 
of  your  sins,  the  problem  of  pain  would  cease  to  exist 
for  you.  Then  listen  to  this.  So  soon  as  I  look  upon 
Jesus  Christ  for  a  solution,  so  soon  there  comes  home  to 
me  a  message  of  hope.  For  I  cannot  believe  in  punish- 
ment which  is  merely  retributive ;  I  do  not  think  such 
a  thing  exists.  When  God  writes  His  verdict  upon 
sin,  in  the  pain  that  must  be  borne,  then  I  see  hope  for 
the  soul  that  is  punished.  He  punishes  that  He  may 
save.  Punishment  is  warning,  awakening,  calling 
back  to  God,  and,  if  you  will,  the  curse  may  become  the 
Cross.  I  go  beyond  this.  I  see  that  pain  is  that  which 
deepens  human  nature  in  such  wise  that  even  sympathy 
with  joy  is  only  possible  through  sympathy  with  pain. 
You  cannot  enjoy,  and  you  have  not  come  to  the  power 
of  seeing  others  enjoy,  if  it  be  not  for  your  acquaintance 
with  the  opposite  of  joy.  I  do  not  know  whether  I 
ought  to  call  pain  the  opposite  of  joy.  There  is  not  in 
our  language  a  word  to  express  sympathy  with  joy. 
And  yet  the  word  has  just  been  employed,  which  is  a 


88       CITY    TEMPLE    SERMONS 

wrong  one,  because  there  is  not  a  right  one.  That 
word  sympathy  merely  means  "  suffering  with."  We 
have  no  word  for  "  joying  with  " ;  if  there  were,  it 
Vv'ould  be  something  like  "  with-joicing  " — how  shall 
I  with-joice  with  any  man  unless  I  first  with-pain  with 
him?  To  sympathise  with  joy  we  need  to  sympathise 
with  sorrow.  I  now  come  to  a  point  where  language 
is  not  big  enough  to  tell  all  that  I  mean.  That  which 
is  best  in  human  nature  and  experience  depends,  first 
of  all,  upon  your  acquaintance  with  the  great  mystery 
of  pain.  Let  me  illustrate :  the  Mayor  of  Brighton 
gave  a  children's  fancy  dress  ball,  and  looo  little  people 
went  to  take  part  in  it.  Parents  were  privileged  to  be 
present  in  our  two  largest  buildings — the  Dome  and  the 
Corn  Exchange — to  see  the  little  ones  file  through 
them,  and  I  went  because  I  had  a  stake  in  the  concern. 
I  noticed  this,  and  it  was  an  exceedingly  pathetic  sight ; 
as  the  little  ones  came  past,  here  and  there  I  saw  a  man 
and  a  woman  crying.  What  for?  The  little  ones 
were  not  crying ;  they  were  just  in  their  seventh  heaven. 
I  suppose  we  were,  too,  who  were  watching  with  full 
hearts.  Why  were  the  grown-up  people  crying  as 
they  looked  at  the  little  ones  filing  by?  I  see  the 
answer  in  your  faces ;  it  is  because  of  the  sympathy 
with  the  joy  of  the  children  which  was  felt  by  the 
grown  man,  with  his  knowledge  of  the  weight  of  the 
world's  sorrow. 

"  O  little  feet,  that  such  long  years 
Must  wander  on  through  hopes  and  fears, 
Must  ache  and  bleed  beneath  your  load  ; 
I,  nearer  to  the  wayside  inn, 
Where  toil  shall  cease  and  rest  begin. 
Am  weary,  thinkiug  of  your  road." 


THE    MYSTERY    OF    PAIN         89 

We  feel,  when  we  look  at  the  joy  that  is  in  the  world, 
that  we  cannot  read  it  as  we  should,  we  cannot  enter 
into  it  as  we  ought,  we  cannot  feel  ourselves  bound  to 
it  with  ties  that  nothing  can  sunder,  except  we  have 
first  had  our  acquaintance  with  pain.  Even  love — 
which  spells  sacrifice — love  presumes  pain.  Is  there 
any  man,  be  he  Christian,  Jew,  or  Atheist,  who  would 
be  without  the  love  that  lightens  his  life  ?  To  be  with- 
out the  pain  he  must  be  without  the  love ;  neither  can 
exist — nor  does  exist — in  this  world  without  the  other ; 
and  in  the  next,  I  take  it  that  the  highest  ']oy,  the  bliss 
unspeakable,  without  which  we  are  never  to  be,  will  be 
that  in  which  the  experience  of  pain  is  latent,  but  not 
perceived;  experienced,  but  not  remembered.  Our 
sorrow  shall  be  turned  into  joy. 

Here  I  come  to  the  second  part  of  the  value  of  which 
I  have  spoken.  Let  me  state  the  points  without  at- 
tempting to  illustrate.  Humanity  is  one;  we  take  the 
problem  in  its  wholeness.  If  any  man  can  affirm  that 
in  general,  whatever  he  may  say  of  particulars,  pain 
has  proved  to  be  a  good  for  him — or,  rather,  to  be  care- 
ful of  language,  a  means  to  a  good — I  ask  that  man 
where  the  good  is  going  to  stop.  Can  you  be  perfectly 
content  if  you  realise  that  your  brethren,  the  rest  of 
humanity,  are  excluded  from  the  good  that  you  have 
earned?  Assuredly  not.  Personality  comes  to  its 
own  only  in  relations.  The  highest  joy  which  man- 
kind has  shown  itself  capable  of  knowing  is  that  of 
vicarious  suffering.  Sometimes  we  shrink  from  that 
highest,  but  for  those  who  have  shown  themselves 
capable  of  it  there  has  come  a  great  discovery,  the  dis- 
covery that  that  joy  which  calmly  seeks  that  blessed- 


90       CITY    TEMPLE    SERMONS 

ness  is  his  who  gives  himself  that  others  may  Uve. 
Now,  when  I  say  your  Hfe  has  a  value  to  humanity,  it 
may  be  that  God  is  carrying  out  that  principle  in  you 
without  consulting  you.  There  is  such  a  thing  as 
vicarious  experience.  Who  knows  but  that  the  poor 
man  outside  this  church  this  morning^  who,  of  an- 
other's fault  and  not  of  his  own,  has  been  moved  to  a 
sufifering  which  you  shall  never  share,  is  doing  some- 
thing for  you?  If  I  am  unduly  mystical,  let  me  say 
this  in  support,  if  not  in  proof,  of  my  proposition : 
What  you  are  living  to-day  you  are  living  for  me  as 
well  as  for  yourself.  No  one  like  you  will  ever  live 
again,  and  no  one  will  live  precisely  your  life.  What 
you  are  doing,  what  you  are  suffering,  is  for  humanity 
as  well  as  for  yourself.  You  are  an  end  in  yourself. 
God  thinks  of  you  as  though  none  other  had  ever  lived, 
but  He  thinks  of  you  in  relation  to  the  rest,  and  when 
the  great  story  comes  to  be  told  you  will  find  that 
suflfering  has  been  giving,  and  that  men  have  been  giv- 
ing in  their  pain  who  never  knew  it  at  all. 

That  brings  me  to  the  last  point — that  suffering  is 
giving.  That  is  the  way  in  which  I  should  like  to 
read  of  God.  If  you  could  have  God  come  again,  or 
supposing  you  had  never  heard  of  Him  on  the  plane  of 
human  history  at  all,  and  knew  nothing  about  God 
except  what  preachers  say  and  you  yourself  have 
thought,  how  would  you  have  Him  to  come?  If  God 
came  on  the  clouds  of  heaven,  declaring  Himself  with 
great  pomp  and  glory,  I  think  I  should  shrink  from  the 
great  psalm  of  majesty ;  there  would  be  a  note  wanting 
that  I  should  long  to  hear.  But  if  God  came  as  a 
fellow  and  as  a  leader,  and  laid  Himself  alongside  my 
every  experience;  if  God  showed  Himself  capable  of 


THE    MYSTERY    OF   PAIN       91 

suffering,  I  should  feel  that  God  had  reached  to  the 
ultimate  in  His  nature,  and  bound  me  to  Him  there. 
And  so  it  has  been.  Jesus  Christ  has  come.  Jesus 
Christ  has  come  to  bring  us  to  the  Father;  He  came 
bearing  His  Cross.  He  leads  humanity  through  the 
Via  Dolorosa;  when  He  takes  us  through  the  waters 
He  is  at  our  side,  and  it  is  from  His  lips  in  the  hour  of 
Gethsemane  that  I  hear  the  promise,  "  Your  sorrow 
shall  be  turned  into  joy."  Let  me  read  to  you  the 
words  of  a  Roman  Catholic  theologian,  which  strike 
me  as  being  so  beautifully  true  that  they  may  fitly  be 
quoted  here :  "  Our  Lord  left  a  special  blessing  for 
those  children  of  the  first  resurrection,  who,  being 
perfected  in  a  short  time,  have  fulfilled  many  times, 
and  are  taken  in  the  unsullied  freshness  of  their  early 
bloom,  by  the  wasting  sickness  or  the  baptism  of  blood, 
to  behold  the  King  in  His  beauty  and  the  land  that  is 
far  away.  But  sooner  or  later  a  crisis  comes  in  the 
lives  of  the  rest  of  us  who  linger  here,  when  we  are 
constrained  to  walk — it  may  be  with  backward  step 
and  averted  eye — up  the  road  that  leads  to  Calvary, 
and  the  sun  goes  down  at  noon,  and  the  stars  withdraw 
their  shining,  and  the  Cross  stands  bare  and  cold  under 
the  darkened  heavens,  and  we  must  be  stretched 
thereon,  whether  we  will  or  no.  It  is  well  for  all  in 
that  hour  of  solitary  trial  who  can  patiently,  nay, 
thankfully,  embrace  their  cross  as  knowing  that,  in- 
deed, they  are  not  alone,  but  are  crucified  with  Jesus." 

Here  is  the  secret  of  all  highest  joy,  the  greatest 
paradox  in  human  experience — the  Cross  is  the  secret 
of  the  Crown.  Without  it  you  do  not  know  life ;  with- 
out it  you  do  not  know  God.  Life  is  not  all  darkness, 
and  whatever  darkness  there  is  we  can  defy,  for  even 


02       CITY    TEMPLE    SERMONS 

here  and  now  the  secret  of  the  Lord  is  with  them  that 
stand  under  the  shadow  of  Calvary.  You  have  noth- 
ing to  fear,  for  it  is  a  pierced  hand  that  holds  the 
sceptre  of  the  world.  In  the  suffering  Christ  is  my 
hope  of  glory  and  of  the  bliss  that  fadeth  not  away. 
We  listen  with  thankfulness  and  with  confidence  to 
His  promise,  given  as  He  went  forward  to  His  own 
Cross,  "  Peace  I  leave  with  you,  My  peace  I  give  unto 
you ;  not  as  the  world  giveth  give  I  unto  you.  Let  not 
your  heart  be  troubled,  neither  let  it  be  afraid." 


I 


VIII 

CHRISTIANITY     AND     THE     SOCIAL 
ORDER 

Thy  kingdom  come.  Thy  will  be  done,  as  in  heaven  so  in 
earth.     Give  us,  day  by  day,  our  daily  bread. — Luke  xi.  2-3. 

If  ye  fulfil  the  royal  law  according  to  the  Scripture, 
Thou  shall  love  thy  neighbour  as  thyself,  ye  do  well ;  but  if 
ye  have  respect  to  persons,  ye  cotntnit  sin. — James  ii.  8-g. 

MANY  of  you  must  have  been  privileged  to  see 
some  time  ago  the  Tissot  gallery  of  paintings, 
illustrative  of  our  Lord's  life  and  ministry. 
It  was  an  interesting  collection  of  paintings 
from  this  circumstance,  if  for  nothing  more, 
that  the  great  painter  who  gave  them  to  the 
world  spent  ten  years  after  his  conversion  in  study- 
ing on  the  spot  in  the  Holy  Land  the  conditions  under 
which  our  Lord  must  have  lived  and  wrought  and 
taught.  It  seems  to  me  that  God  must  have  taught  the 
painter  Himself.  One  of  the  pictures  which  most 
commanded  my  attention  was  that  entitled  "The  Lord's 
Prayer."  Here  Tissot  portrays  the  Master  standing 
in  the  midst  of  His  disciples,  who  are  seated  in  a  semi- 
circle around  Him,  like  a  class  waiting  at  the  knees  of  a 
teacher.  The  Master's  hand  is  raised  in  hortatory 
fashion,  and  the  disciples  are  evidently  repeating  after 
Him  the  words  of  the  Lord's  Prayer.  It  struck  me 
that  there,  by  a  flash  of  intuition,  the  painter  was  per- 

S3 


94       CITY    TEMPLE    SERMONS 

mitted  in  God's  providence  to  give  to  the  world  for  the 
first  time  the  actual  conditions  under  which  our  Lord 
taught  His  disciples  to  pray  in  those  golden  words. 
"  Our  Father  which  art  in  heaven,"  said  the  great 
Teacher.  "  Otir  Father  which  art  in  heaven,"  re- 
peated after  Him  the  poor  Galilean  fishermen  sitting 
side  uy  side.  "  Hallowed  be  Thy  name.  Thy  king- 
dom come.  Thy  will  be  done.  Give  us  our  daily 
bread."  The  kingdom  of  God  had  come  when  the 
disciples  of  Jesus,  sitting  side  by  side,  said  in  company, 
"Our  Father  which  art  in  heaven,"  and  looking  up  into 
the  face  of  Jesus  as  they  said  it.  The  world  has  been 
looking  into  the  face  of  Jesus  ever  since  as  the  hope  of 
humanity,  the  great  Teacher,  Master,  Guide,  and  Re- 
deemer of  the  race.  There  is  no  problem  of  impor- 
tance to  humanity  which  has  not  some  reference  to  the 
Gospel  of  Christ.  We  to-day,  like  the  disciples  of  old, 
can  say,  "  Lord,  teach  us  to  pray,"  and  when  we  are 
so  taught  and  in  His  spirit  pray,  it  is  for  the  common 
needs  of  humanity  that  our  prayers  are  most  urgent. 
"  Thy  kingdom  come  "  will  cover  them  all.  But  there 
is  no  man  so  rich  in  this  world's  goods  who  can  afford 
to  ignore  the  complementary  petition,  "  Give  us  day  by 
day  our  daily  bread."  On  another  occasion,  as  I  need 
not  remind  you,  the  Master  enunciated,  not  for  the  first 
time  in  the  history  of  Israel,  the  two  great  command- 
ments which  are  really  one — 

"  Thou  shalt  love  the  Lord  thy  God  with  all  thy 
heart,  and  zvith  all  thy  soid,  and  with  all  thy  mind. 
This  is  the  first  and  great  commandment.  And  the 
second  is  like  unto  it.  Thou  shalt  love  thy  neigh- 
hour  as  thyself.  On  these  two  commandments  hang 
all  the  law  and  the  prophets." 


THE    SOCIAL    ORDER  95 

The  little  group  of  simple  men  who  heard  Him  thus 
speak  went  forth  to  carry  the  Gospel  message  to  the 
world,  went  forth  conquering  and  to  conquer,  carrying 
the  glad  tidings  of  the  kingdom  of  God.  If  there  be 
any  other  commandment,  it  is  summed  up  in  this : 
"  Thou  shalt  love  thy  neighbour  as  thyself."  Thank 
God  the  kingdom  of  God  came  when  any  man' could 
once  sincerely  pray  so.  The  kingdom  of  God  has 
come,  and  come  fully,  when  any  man  has  given  himself/ 
over  to  the  keeping  of  Jesus  Christ  and  in  His  spiritu 
serves  his  fellows.  No  man  can  partake  of  the  spirit' 
of  Jesus  without  becoming  a  saviour — such  were  Peter, 
James,  and  John,  whom  the  Master  taught  to  pray. 

But  in  another  sense  the  kingdom  has  not  yet  come. 
Society  does  not  obey  the  voice  of  the  Master.     Nearly 
two  millenniums  have  passed  since  that  historic  scene 
in  which  the  Master  taught  His  disciples  to  say,  "  Thy 
kingdom  come,"  and  it  has  not  come  yet.     The  Church 
has  at  times  been  unfaithful  to  her  trust,  and  has  af- 
firmed that  to  be  the  whole  Gospel  which  was  only  a 
part.     We  ought  never  to  acquiesce  in  counsels  of 
despair.     No  problem  is  intractable ;  no  human  want, 
however  seemingly  hopeless,  is  really  so.     The  Gospel 
of  Jesus  Christ  is  a  Gospel  which  carries  the_  whole 
^56d  of  mankindTand  tnere  is  no'wanrwhich_it  cannot 
meet.  ~^he  Church  frorrTage  to  age  has  been  righting 
herself  from  time  to  time  in  these  things,  and  if  at  the 
moment  we  have  got  out  of  touch  with  some  of  the 
I  most  urgent  needs  of  our  day  and  generation,  it  is 
•  time  that  the  Church  came  back  in  faithfulness  to  the 
I  spirit  of  the  Lord's  Prayer.     Now,  just  at  the  moment 
I  it  seems  to  me  that  the  Church  of  Christ  in  this  country 
^is  in  danger  of  getting  out  of  touch  with  the  great 


96       CITY   TEMPLE    SERMONS 

\  masses  of  the  workers ;  I  do  not  say  she  has  done  so, 
)  but  I  firmly  believe  she  is  in  danger  of  doing  it.     The 
statistics  which  have  been  published  by  the  London 
Daily  News   have   caused   much  searching  of  heart 
on  the  part  of  a  good  many  of  us,  and  the  fault  is  not 
entirely  with  the  ministry,  whatever  may  be  the  real 
cause  of  the  apparent  shrinkage  in  attendance  at  public 
worship.     I  do  not  believe  that  the  evil  is  without  a 
I  remedy,  nor  do  I  believe  that  the  abstention  of  the 
'masses  from  the  service  of  the  house  of  God  is  caused 
(by  indifiference  to  the  great  themes  of  religion.     The 
/  day  will  yet  come — I  long  to  see  it,  and  hope  to  live  to 
[see  it — when  the  whole  nation  shall  be  brought  back 
(to  the  loving  service  of  the  public  worship  of  Almighty 
^God.     Nor  do  I  think  it  is  caused  by  indifference  to . 
the  Gospel  as  it  came  from  the  lips  of  Jesus  Christ.' 
Respect  for  the  name  of  Jesus  never  stood  higher  than  I 
it  stands  at  this  moment.     You  can  enter  no  assembly ) 
whatever,  be  it  political,  rehgious,  or  merely  a  place  of 
entertainment,  in  which  any  sentiment  derogatory  to 
the  name  of  Jesus  would  be  entertained  with  patience. 
To-day  the  great  community  is  filled  with  admiration, 
reverence,  and  love  for  the  name  of  the  lowly  Naza- 
rene.     But  at  the  same  moment  it  is  true  they  distrust  i 
those  who  speak  in  His  name.     The  ministry  is  not* 
just  now  of  good  odour  in  the  nostrils  of  the  masses  of 
the  people.     I  often  feel  that  when  I  have  to  address  | 
working  men  they  begin  by  distrusting  me:  they  dis-i 
trust  my  brethren  of  the  cloth ;  they  feel  we  have  no 
real  message  for  the  deep  needs  of  the  hour,     Now.l 
the  reason,  or  one  reason,  is  that  we  have  shirked  our| 
duty  as  a  church  in  regard  to  great  social  problems,! 
the   struggle   to   live.     If   we   have   nothing  to  say 


THE    SOCIAL    ORDER  97 

we  have  failed  Christianity,  Christianity  has  not 
failed  us. 

This  problem  is  one  which  is  comparatively  new. 
Every  student  of  history  knows  that  in  this  country 
centuries  ago  and  under  the  manorial  system,  whatever 
laws  might  be  wrong,  the  problem  of  a  livelihood  for 
every  member  of  a  village  community  had  not  even 
arisen.  Plague,  pestilence,  and  famine  attacked  our 
ancestors ;  but  if  there  was  bread  enough  to  go  round 
in  the  manor  the  hungriest  member  of  the  community 
was  entitled  to  his  share.  It  is  almost  within  the 
memory  of  some  living  when  a  modification  of  this 
system  obtained  in  rural  districts ;  it  does  not  obtain 
now.  We  cannot  meet,  under  our  complex  social 
system,  with  an  example  of  a  country  parson  like  him 
whom  Goldsmith  describes,  who  was  "  passing  rich  on 
forty  pounds  a  year  " ;  nor  can  we  ever  expect  again  to 
see  the  close  personal  touch  in  the  town  between  master 
and  man.  For  with  the  disappearance,  or  the  com- 
parative disappearance,  of  the  small  tradesman  is 
going,  or  has  gone,  the  system  of  apprenticeship  which 
meant  some  responsibility  on  the  part  of  the  employer 
for  the  welfare  of  the  employed.  Since  1846,  and  with 
the  abolition  of  the  iniquitous  Corn  Laws,  certain  new 
doctrines  which  have  had  their  day  have  come  into 
vogue,  have  done  a  great  deal  for  the  amelioration  of 
society,  and  have  brought  some  mischief  too.  The 
doctrine  of  individual  liberty  has  been  carried  so  far 
that  in  some  relations  it  has  become  tyranny.  At  the 
present  moment  the  social  order  presents  certain  fea- 
tures with  which  we  are  all  familiar,  each  one  of  which 
raises  a  multitude  of  problems. 

i. — The  first  is  simply  this — the    accumulation    of 


98       CITY    TEMPLE    SERMONS 

capital  in  a  few  hands,  the  gradual  extinction  of 
the  small  employer,  the  formation  of  great  com- 
panies, rings,  combines,  and  trusts.  In  America 
they  are  feeling  the  pressure  and  the  power  of 
these  great  interests  more  than  we  are  in  England, 
but  here  the  tendency  is  on  the  increase ;  more  and  more 
is  it  observable  that  power  is  being  placed  in  the  hands 
of  a  comparatively  few  rich  men,  who,  whether  they 
use  it  for  good  or  for  evil,  have  the  power  to  use. 
Now,  no  great  corporation  has  a  soul ;  you  never  met 
with  a  conscience  in  a  great  body  without  an  individ- 
uality. Its  employees  are  necessarily  units  for  the  ac- 
cumulation of  dividends,  and  nothing  more.  I  state 
the  fact,  and  leave  it.  That  tendency  is  on  the  in- 
crease, and  it  is  one  fruit  of  the  doctrine  of  individ- 
ualism preached  so  vigorously  by  good  men  like  John 
Bright  in  the  middle  of  the  last  century. 

ii. — Another  feature  is  the  increase  of  the  power  and 
the  activity  of  trade  unionism.  I  hold  no  brief  for 
trade  unionism  pure  and  simple;  I  believe  it  has  been 
fraught  with  many  mischiefs.  One  of  its  tendencies 
is  to  lower  the  level  of  ef^ciency  to  the  ability  of  the 
least  efficient  worker ;  another  has  been  to  attempt  petty 
tyranny  over  individual  workers  who  are  prepared  to 
go  further  and  do  more  than  their  fellows  to  give  out 
what  is  in  them  to  do ;  and  the  third  has  been  the  tend- 
ency to  victimise  the  community  by  restricting  the 
output,  and  therefore  gradually  lowering  the  level  of 
national  efficiency.  Now,  in  these  days,  when  the 
nation  itself  is  struggling  to  maintain  its  footing 
amongst  the  nations  of  the  earth,  when  our  commercial 
supremacy  (I  hardly  like  the  word)  is  threatened,  there 
ought  to  be  no  influence,  whether  it  be  capital  or  labour, 


THE    SOCIAL    ORDER  99 

militating  against  the  prosperity  of  the  community  as  a 
whole.  But  trade  unionism  was  an  actual  necessity. 
If  trade  unionism  were  to  disappear  to-morrow,  you 
know  perfectly  well  what  the  lot  of  the  workers  would 
be.  It  is  bad  enough  now ;  it  was  bad  in  the  old  days, 
when  the  factory  system  first  became  a  power,  and 
under  such  men  as  Cobden  and  Bright.  What  would 
it  be  under  Pierpont  Morgan  &  Co.  ? 

Here  I  would  point  out  to  you  a  significant  fact. 
Men  of  the  Samuel  Morley  type  seem  to  have  passed 
away;  money  is  accumulated  in  the  hands  of  men  of 
different  mental  and  moral  calibre.  Men  who  are 
good  for  very  little  else  seem  to  have  the  power  of 
making  money,  and  that  power  gives  them  a  dominance 
over  their  fellows  to  which  on  no  other  ground  they 
are  entitled.  To  make  a  long  statement  short,  the 
inevitable  conflict  between  these  two  tendencies  which 
I  have  stated — the  tendency  towards  the  accumulation 
of  capital,  and  the  tendency  to  the  organisation  of 
labour  in  self-defence  and  something  more — means  a 
certain  detriment  to  the  community  in  which,  no  matter 
how  you  try  to  safeguard  the  results,  the  weakest  are 
the  real  sufferers. 

iii. — A  third  feature  of  the  present  social  order  is 
one  with  which  we  have  been  recently  familiar  in 
London,  and  of  which  the  processions  of  the  unem- 
ployed are  a  symptom — the  tendency  to  ever-recurring 
periods  of  depression,  in  which  men,  only  some  of 
whom  you  ever  hear  about  at  all,  are  deprived  of  the 
power  of  earning  their  own  living.  A  large  number 
of  men  over  forty  years  of  age  are  living  in  dread  of 
to-morrow.  It  is  becoming  increasingly  difficult  in 
the  great  business  houses  of  this  metropolis  for  men  in 


100      CITY    TEMPLE    SERMONS 

{middle  life  once  out  of  a  situation  to  get  another. 

^That  is  one  fruit  of  our  system.  We  attempt  to  meet 
it  by  sporadic  efforts  at  charity.  Charity  is  not  a 
remedy,  it  is  only  an  expedient.  When  on  Christmas 
Day  in  this  place  you  were  good  enough  to  give  a 
collection  amounting  to  i6i,  in  order  to  feed  poor 
children,  you  were  doing  what  was  done  on  that  day 
all  over  the  country,  and  for  one  part  of  the  year  at 
any  rate  the  little  children  were  clothed  and  warmed 
and  fed.  There  is  plenty  of  goodness  of  heart  in  the 
community  when  it  is  once  reached.  I  was  standing, 
on  New  Year's  Day,  watching  one  of  these  great 
dinners,  when  someone  camje  up  to  me  and  said,  look- 
ing at  the  poor  little  hungry  feeders,  "  Isn't  this  a 
pathetic  sight?"  I  said,  "It  is,  indeed."  "How 
long  will  this  kind  of  thing  be  necessary  ?  "  The  re- 
mark sank  deep  into  mind  and  heart,  for  the  question 
is  one  that  we  ought  all  to  be  asking.  Why  should 
these  little  children,  the  children  of  the  workers,  the 
children  of  the  poor,  have  to  be  dependent  on  us  at  all 
for  the  bread  that  they  eat?  They  have  as  much 
right  to  it  as  we  have,  but  it  is  simply  one  feature  of 
the  system  and  the  tendencies  already  described — the 
recurring  problem  of  want  of  employment,  the  pro- 
cessions of  men  who  tramp  our  streets,  some  of  them 
humbugs,  no  doubt,  who  don't  intend  to  work,  but  who 
are  a  symptom  of  distress  deeper,  greater,  than  our 
imagination  can  really  comprehend. 

iv. — The  last  feature  of  the  present  system  which 
I  shall  mention  is  the  increasing  tendency  to  the  separa- 
tion of  classes.  Under  the  old  system,  with  all  its 
mischief,  the  community  held  the  master  responsible 
to  some  extent  for  the  well-being  of  his  employee.     If 


THE    SOCIAL    ORDER  101 

he  treated  him  badly,  all  the  neighbours  knew  it.  The 
apprentice  was  a  member  of  his  employer's  family,  and 
his  future  was  to  some  extent  guaranteed  by  the 
character  of  the  master  himself.  To-day,  and  in  Lon- 
don, too,  there  are  men  who  never  see  their  employer, 
don't  know  what  he  is  like;  they  will  certainly  never 
see  the  inside  of  his  home,  as  the  old  apprentice  used 
to  do.  The  tendency  is  for  the  distance  between  the 
member  of  the  big  corporation  or  business  house  and 
his  workers  to  increase,  and  there  is  a  real  danger  in 
that  separation  of  classes,  a  doing  away  of  sympathy, 
the  erection  of  barriers  between  man  and  man  which 
ought  not  to  be.  To  illustrate.  Some  time  ago  a 
member  of  my  own  church  came  to  me  and  said : 

*'  As  a  Christian  man,  I  am  very  much  troubled  about 
my  position  in  business  life.  A  few  years  ago  I  was  in 
someone  else's  employ,  in  daily  dread  of  dismissal,  like 
other  people ;  I  never  knew  when  my  time  might  come 
to  be  the  superfluous  hand.  By  a  fortunate  accident 
I  obtained  assistance  to  start  for  myself.  Now  I  am 
a  member  of  a  great  trading  concern;  I  have  capital 
in  it,  and  I  feel  that  every  day  I  am  in  danger  of  treat- 
ing men  as  I  was  once  treated  myself,  and  subjecting 
them  to  the  same  fear  that  once  haunted  me.  I  pay 
them  the  lowest  rate  of  wages  I  can,  for  the  simple 
reason  that  I  must.  I  myself  am  only  one  in  a  big 
concern.  If  we  pay  our  men  more,  we  shall  not  be 
able  to  pay  dividends  so  good  as  a  rival  concern  would, 
and  the  general  public  is  looking  for  dividends.  What 
am  I,  as  a  Christian  man,  to  do?  I  cannot  escape 
from  the  present  situation." 

Perhaps  you  will  blame  me  for  what  I  said.  I  said, 
"  No,  you  can't ;  you  had  better  go  on  as  you  are ;  but 


102      CITY    TEMPLE    SERMONS 

wherever  a  chance  comes  to  you  of  befriending  a  man, 
I  do  it."     What  we  have  to  do  is  not  so  much  to  change 
I  you  or  your  practice  as  to  change  the  system.     Here 
is  where  it  seems  to  me  the  Church  has  not  been  per- 
fectly clear  in  the  lead  she  ought  to  have  given.     The 
preacher  is  not  obliged  to  be  a  statesman :  it  is  the 
statesman's  business  to  put  into  practice  the  principles 
which  the  moral  sense  of  the  community  demands ;  and 
it  is  the  preacher's  business,  it  is  the  duty  of  every 
,  Christian  man,  to  see  that  those  principles  are  made  as 
clear  in  regard  to  every-day  social  and  business  life  as 
can  be.     The  remedy  is  not  in  levelling  down ;  never 
"  suffer  any  man  in  your  presence  to  say  that  it  is.     If 
you  could  take  away  every  farthing  of  the  Archbishop 
of  Canterbury's  salary,  you  would  not  have  done  any- 
thing whatever  to  solve  the  problems  of  the  unem- 
ployed in  the  streets  of  London.     No;  the  remedy  has 
to  be  sought  in  applying  through  the  moral  sense  of 
the  community  the  principles  of  Jesus  Christ  to  the 
public  and  the  social  life  of  our  nation.     If  we  do  that 
you  will  find  that  certain  principles  will  come  out  clear 
as  the  noonday,  if  we  are  honest  to  ourselves. 
The  first  of  these  is  that 

(I.)  Unlimited  competition  is  wrong.  There  is  a 
t  place  for  competition,  but  after  a  certain  point  has 
been  reached  competition  becomes  tyranny.  If 
there  is  any  man  here  who  is  mainly  responsible 
for  the  future  of  a  small  business  house  he  will 
know  what  I  mean,  if  I  use  him  as  illustration. 
You  go  to  the  promoter  of  a  big  concern  that  is  about 
to  crush  you,  and  say,  "  I  cannot  hold  out  against  you. 
What  am  I  to  do?"  "You  must  make  over  your 
business  to  me  on  such  and  such  terms."     "  But  that 


THE    SOCIAL    ORDER  103 

means  ruin  to  me !  "  "  Can't  help  it ;  it's  all  fair ; 
you're  competing  with  me,  and  the  better  will  win." 
Does  it  not  seem  a  hollow  mockery?  The  better  does 
not  win;  the  stronger  does.  In  fact,  the  community 
will  be  more  likely  to  lose  if  the  big  house  wins  than 
if  the  little  one  does.  You  are  having  to  pay  more  to- 
day for  certain  commodities  just  because  of  the  victory 
of  the  big  concern  over  the  little  one,  and  yet  under 
unlimited  competition  the  big  concern  is  sure  to  win 
the  victory  all  the  time.  Where  is  the  remedy  ?  That 
is  for  you  to  say,  member  of  Parliament ;  it  is  for  you 
to  say,  leader  of  County  Council,  municipal  organiser; 
that  is  what  you  are  there  for,  not  for  your  own  in- 
terests. But  if  Jesus  Christ  stood,  and  he  really  does, 
where  I  stand  this  morning,  He  would  say  to  you,  as 
He  said  in  the  days  of  old,  under  other  conditions,  in 
other  terms,  but  with  the  same  meaning  and  the  same 
principle.  Unlimited  competition  is  wrong;  you  have 
no  business  to  crush  the  weak  as  if  he  had  no  rights 
against  the  strong. 

(H.)  Every  man  has  a  right  to  the  opportunity  of 
labouring  for  his  bread.  "  Oh,"  you  say,  "  that  is 
easy  to  say — so  easy.  But  who  is  going  to  find  him 
the  opportunity  of  labouring  for  his  bread?  Besides, 
has  he  any  such  right,  after  all,  if  there  is  no  work  for 
him  to  do  ?  "  Pardon  me,  you  are  begging  the  ques- 
tion. By  the  complexity  of  our  social  organisation  we 
have  taken  away  from  him  the  power  of  using  his 
hands.  It  is  a  grand  principle  that  if  a  man  will  not 
work  neither  shall  he  eat,  but  it  is  a  grander  principle 
that  if  a  man  will  work  he  should  eat.  I  would  there- 
fore pledge  the  national  credit  on  behalf  of  every  man 
who  is  willing  to  use  his  two  hands  to  work.     Mark 


104     CITY    TEMPLE    SERMONS 

you,  it  is  the  duty  of  the  community  to  provide  him 
with  that  opportunity,  for  if  he  were  on  Crusoe's  island 
he  could  work,  he  could  till  the  soil  and  reap  the  fruits ; 
but  just  because  we  are  so  closely  and  complexly 
organised  here,  you  have  taken  away  from  him  the 
opportunity  of  so  doing-. 

Again,  the  State — by  which  I  mean  you — is  entitled 
to  the  full  value  of  every  citizen  it  rears.  I  am  a 
poorer  man  to-day,  and  so  are  you,  by  virtue  of  every 
idle  worker  that  tramps  the  streets ;  we  are  entitled  to 
what  he  could  do.  You  say,  "  But  then,  he  has  done 
enough,  there  is  no  work  to  do;  over-production  has 
settled  that."  There  never  is  over-production ;  there  is 
over-proportionate  production.  Supposing  that  every 
man  who  can  turn  out  boots  and  shoes  could  double 
his  capacity  to-morrow — would  that  be  over-produc- 
tion? Yes,  if  he  took  the  time  from  making  coats. 
But  if  I  can  have  a  new  pair  of  boots  every  morning, 
all  the  better,  provided  it  does  not  rob  me  of  my  coat. 
It  means  that  over-proportionate  production  is  possi- 
ble. Therefore  what  is  wanted  is  the  State  organisa- 
tion of  labour.  That  does  not  mean  that  the  State  will 
take  out  of  the  hands  of  private  individuals  the  duty 
and  the  opportunity  of  giving  employment ;  but  it  does 
mean  that  when  honest  men,  and  there  are  plenty  of 
them,  are  deprived  of  the  opportunity  of  honest  labour 
the  State  should  find  it  without  pauperising  them. 

(III.)  So  soon  as  an  industry  becomes  a  necessity 
for  the  life  of  a  nation — shall  I  say  even  for  the  high 
prosperity  of  a  nation — that  belongs  to  the  nation. 
Let  me  illustrate.  In  the  coal  strike  in  America,  of 
which  we  have  recently  been  hearing  so  much,  a  point 
was  reached  when  the  community  felt  the  dread  of 


THE    SOCIAL    ORDER  105 

coming  winter  and  no  coal.  President  Roosevelt,  the 
mouthpiece  of  the  citizenship  of  America,  spoke  out 
clearly,  and  said,  "  While  you.  Capital,  and  you, 
Labour,  are  quarrelling,  we  are  shivering  with  cold. 
The  nation  can't  stand  still  for  you.  Patch  up  your 
differences  quick,  or  we'll  mine  the  coal."  Why  should 
not  that  be  applied  to  every  such  question  when  it 
arises?  Supposing  that,  in  Lord  Penrhyn's  case,  in- 
stead of  slate  it  was  coal,  and  supposing  instead  of  his 
quarry  in  the  particular  district  where  he  is  master,  he 
owned  all  the  coal;  you  would  very  soon  see  whether 
we  should  settle  that  question  which  has  been  dragging 
on  so  long. 

(IV.)  Up  to  a  certain  point  the  State  is  responsible 
for  the  physical  and  moral  well-being  of  its  individual  i 
members.  That  is  a  very  trite  observation,  but  we 
will  keep  on  saying  it  until  it  is  attended  to.  We  do 
it  already  in  certain  directions.  We  vaccinate  the 
whole  community,  whether  it  likes  it  or  not.  We  are 
quarrelling  about  educating  them ;  we  don't  leave  it 
to  individual  initiative  to  see  whether  a  child  is  having 
an  opportunity  of  learning  to  read.  Why  is  it,  then, 
that  we  take  it  for  granted  that  the  State  has  no  duty  \ 
in  relation  to  the  question  of  feeding  the  father  ?  But 
it  has — some  day  you  will  wonder  that  anybody  ever 
questioned  it  at  all— it  has  a  duty.  You  have  no  right 
to  bring  up  your  citizen,  and  then  leave  him  to  sink  or 
swim  when  it  comes  to  a  question  of  daily  bread.  If 
he  will  not  work  he  should  be  made  to ;  and  if  he  will 
work  it  is  your  duty  to  see  to  it  that  he  has  the  means 
of  substance — which  means  that  he  is  entitled  to  the 
produce  of  his  labour.  Whatever  that  man's  value 
to  the  State,  get  it  all ;  he  is  entitled  to  his  place  in  the 


106     CITY    TEMPLE    SERMONS 

State,  his  return  from  the  State,  because  of  what  he 
gives  to  the  State.  These  principles  are  the  very  body 
and  blood  of  Christianity.  No  matter  how  difficult 
they  are  to  put  in  practice,  they  should  be  declared,  and 
as  power  rests  with  the  community  now,  as  it  did  not 
when  the  Gospel  of  Jesus  Christ  was  first  preached, 
we  must  thrust  upon  the  communit}-,  and  not  upon 
individual  churches,  the  duty  of  applying  such  moral 
principles  in  all  their  grandeur  and  effectiveness  to  the 
ordinary  issues  of  human  life. 

I  close  by  recalling  your  attention  to  the  Author  of 
our  salvation  and  to  the  words  of  Jesus  Himself. 
That  is  the  way  in  which  that  great  ministry  began 
which  has  shaken  the  world.  Our  Lord's  first  duty 
was  to  His  own.  He  went  to  Nazareth,  where  He  had 
been  brought  up,  and  opened  the  book,  and  read : 

"  The  Spirit  of  the  Lord  is  upon  Me,  because  He  hath 
anointed  Me  to  preach  the  gospel  to  the  poor ;  He  hath 
sent  Me  to  heal  the  broken-hearted,  to  preach  deliver- 
ance to  the  captives,  and  recovering  of  sight  to  the 
blind,  to  set  at  liberty  them  that  are  bruised,  to  preach 
the  acceptable  year  of  the  Lord.  And  He  closed  the 
book,  and  He  gave  it  again  to  the  minister  and  sat  down. 
And  the  eyes  of  all  them  that  were  in  the  synagogue 
were  fastened  on  Him.  And  He  began  to  say  unto 
them, 'This  day  is  this  scripture  fulfilled  in  your  ears.'" 

Christ  is  the  deliverer.  Don't  you  leave  these 
problems  to  any  demagogue  who  repudiates  the  Christ. 
Christ  is  the  King  in  the  kingdom  that  is  coming. 
Christ  is  the  Master  of  our  soul,  the  Redeemer  of  our 
life,  and  there  is  no  corner  of  that  life  which  is  to  be 
left  unredeemed.  This  is  the  Gospel  of  Jesus  Christ, 
and  this  is  the  glad  tidings  of  the  kingdom  of  God. 


IX 
THE  DIVINE  IDEAL  OF  MANHOOD* 

Love  is  the  fulfilling  of  the  law. — Ro7n.  xiii.  lo. 

JOHN  the  Divine  is  usually  thought  of  as  the 
Apostle  of  Love,  and  rightly  so;  for  he  who 
wrote  the  Fourth  Gospel  and  the  Epistles,  which 
stand  in  the  name  of  the  same  writer,  had  a  wonder- 
fully sweet  and  beautiful  message  to  mankind  from  the 
inner  mind  of  his  Master.  But  I  often  think  that  the 
description,  the  Apostle  of  Love,  belongs  just  as  much 
to  the  great  apostle  of  the  Gentiles.  I  think  Paul  gives 
us  in  this  epistle  and  in  his  other  theological  letters 
teaching  as  helpful,  majestic,  and  tender  as  that  of 
John  the  Divine  himself,  and  on  that  very  subject 
where  John  the  Divine  is  considered  to  be  master  I 
should  place  St.  Paul  by  his  side.  Let  any  man  read 
I  Cor.  xiii.,  written,  as  it  must  have  been,  from  a  rich 
and  ripe  experience,  written  with  tender  feeling,  with 
marvellous  spiritual  insight;  and  I  think  he  will  not 
refuse  the  title,  the  Apostle  of  Love,  to  St.  Paul. 
Nor  is  this  very  wonderful ;  for  the  Gospel  which  they 
had  preached  was  a  Gospel  in  which  love  was  placed 
as  the  guide  of  the  virtues,  the  inspiration  and  the  ful- 
filment of  them  all.  Christianity  is  the  revelation  of 
the  love  of  God  and  the  inculcation  of  love  of  man. 
*  Preached  in  Union  Chapel,  Brighton,  Sunday  morning, 
January  i8,  1903. 


108     CITY    TEMPLE    SERMONS 

Its  watchword  is  "  Glory  to  God  in  the  highest,  on 
earth  peace,  goodwill  amongst  men." 

There  are  three  words  in  the  Greek  language,  each 
of  which  has  to  be  translated  into  English  by  the  word 
"  love."  In  the  New  Testament  that  which  is  trans- 
lated "  love,"  in  the  sense  of  Christian  love,  is  the 
agapee.  The  first  word,  which  is  not  mentioned, 
describes  sexual  love,  the  second  is  family  affection, 
and  the  third  this  Christian  love  of  which  I  have 
spoken,  and  which  might  exist  in  a  man  who  did  not 
know  Christ,  though  it  could  not  exist  in  its  fulness. 
This  word  implies  a  reverent  goodwill,  in  which  the 
will  of  the  man  who  loves  plays  the  principal  part. 
The  love  that  we  have  before  us  here,  and  which  the 
writers  of  the  New  Testament  set  before  us  on  every 
occasion  when  they  teach  about  the  inner  principle  of 
Christianity,  is  a  reverent  goodwill,  not  only  from  man 
to  God,  but  from  man  to  man.  Do  not,  I  beseech  you, 
lose  sight  of  the  point  I  am  trying  to  make.  The  very 
same  word  which  describes  love  to  God,  love  from  men 
to  God,  is  the  word  which  is  invariably  used  by  New 
Testament  teachers,  by  the  great  apostle  of  the 
Gentiles,  and  by  John  the  Divine,  to  describe  the  rela- 
tions which  should  exist  between  man  and  man.  Are 
we  wrong,  then,  in  drawing  this  deduction — that  the 
same  quality  in  reverent  affection  which  is  due  from 
man  to  God  is  due  from  man  to  man  ?  He  that  loveth 
another — what  other  ? — the  other  who  stands  near  him, 
between  man  and  man ;  the  other  who  may  be  God,  the 
Friend  who  sticketh  closer  than  a  brother — he  who 
loveth  another  hath  fulfilled  the  law,  for  love  is  the 
fulfilling  of  the  law. 

In  connection  with  this  great  principle,  I  wish  to  set 


THE    DIVINE    IDEAL  109 

before  you  three  propositions: — (i)  Religion  and 
morality  are  not  necessarily  the  same  thing;  religion 
and  morality  have  not  always  been  found  together. 
(2)  Yet  there  is  no  man  who  would  refuse  to  recognise 
the  imperative  of  the  moral  law,  even  though  he  dis- 
obeys it.  (3)  In  Christ  religion  and  morality  have  a 
common  ideal  and  a  common  goal. 

I.  Religion  and  morality  do  not  necessarily  involve 
each  other.  I  am  inclined  to  go  so  far  as  to  say  that 
in  the  history  of  the  world  religion  and  morality  have 
commonly  been  opposed  to  each  other.  I  think  that 
was  so  in  the  world  to  which  Paul  preached.  At  the 
moment  when  this  letter  to  the  Romans  was  written 
Rome  was  the  cockpit  of  religions.  Every  fad,  every 
new  cult,  every  evil  form  of  belief  and  practice,  had  its 
representative  in  Rome.  At  the  moment  when  St. 
Paul  writes,  religion  has  fallen  into  deep  discredit  with 
those  who  were  disposed  to  take  life  seriously  and 
nobly.  For  then,  as  now — though  happily  now  we  are 
not  as  we  were  then  in  everything — then  as  now  some 
serious-minded  men  who  were  living  nobly  according 
to  their  lights  refused  to  recognise  in  the  competing 
and  degraded  religious  faiths  of  the  hour  any  guidance 
worthy  of  the  homage  of  conscience.  The  State 
religions  even,  which  were  observed  and  practised  by 
men  like  the  Emperor  Marcus  Aurelius,  were  not 
reverenced  by  the  people  who  practised  them ;  they 
were  simply  recognised  as  customary,  venerable,  and, 
therefore,  binding  for  outward  observance  and  for  the 
sake  of  social  order;  but  as  for  having  a  relation  to 
conscience — that  never  entered  the  mind  of  any  person 
who  practised  them  at  all. 

Again,  this  is  not  the  only  instance  in  human  history 


110      CITY    TEMPLE    SERMONS 

when  the  same  thing  has  held  good.  That  mighty 
religion  of  the  East  known  as  Buddhism,  which,  I 
think,  enrols  or  includes  about  four  hundred  million 
adherents,  and  which  in  some  of  its  forms  has  borne  a 
certain  resemblance  to  the  Christianity  under  which 
you  and  I  were  trained,  came  into  existence  at  first 
scarcely  as  a  religion,  but  rather  as  a  philosophy  pro- 
testing against  the  depravity  of  the  cruel  and  vicious 
cult  of  the  time.  The  Buddhism  that  you  would  see  in 
India  to-day,  and  to  war  against  which  you  send  your 
missionaries,  is  not  the  Buddhism  of  Gautama,  the 
Light  of  Asia,  who  had  no  idols  in  his  system,  and 
whose  one  law  was  the  law  of  love.  For,  pessimistic 
though  that  creed  was,  it  at  least  saw  as  far  as  this, 
that  the  way  of  escape  from  human  ill  was  by  the  law 
of  love.  But  Buddhism  and  Christianity  were  wide 
as  the  poles  apart  in  this :  that  the  law  of  love,  once 
victorious,  said  the  Buddhist,  is  to  result  in  eternal 
death,  which  is  the  only  peace  humanity  can  hope 
for;  while  the  law  of  love,  according  to  Jesus,  will 
result  in  eternal  life,  which  is  the  good  that  the 
Christian  can  hope  for.  The  .Buddhism  of  which  I 
have  just  spoken  came  into  existence  as  the  protest  of 
morality  against  religion. 

Again,  even  in  the  history  of  Christianity  itself,  we 
have  something  instructive.  What  was  the  Reforma- 
tion of  the  sixteenth  century  but  the  protest  of  the  con- 
science against  the  prevailing  religion?  And  to-day, 
when  some  of  you  are  inclined  to  take  matters  more 
lightly,  and  to  think  that  the  things  for  which  your 
fathers  fought  and  died  do  not  matter  much,  there  is  a 
danger  lest  we  lose  something  which  was  gained  in  that 
great  conflict.     Conscience  entered  its  protest  against 


THE    DIVINE    IDEAL  111 

the  degrading-,  immoral,  paganising  practices  of  the 
officials  of  what  purported  to  be  the  Christian  Church. 
They  rescued  Christianity  by  calling  men  to  the  ideal 
of  Christ,  to  His  authority,  and  to  His  gospel.  Thnt 
protest  of  conscience  against  what  seemed  to  be  re- 
ligion has  been  made  more  than  once  in  the  history  of 
Christianity  since. 

II.  Morality  and  religion,  if  only  Christ  be  received 
and  understood,  have  the  same  ideal  and  the  same  goal, 
must  ultimately  appeal  to  the  same  faculties  in  human 
nature.  For  men  always  recognise  the  imperative  of 
conscience,  even  when  they  refuse  to  obey  it.  When 
men  begin  to  speculate  as  to  whether  conscience  is  to 
be  trusted,  whether  it  is  not  the  accidental  outcome  of 
things  for  which  there  is  no  mental  justification — ^the 
struggle  for  existence  is  one,  and  the  social  preserva- 
tion is  another — and  so  on,  they  are  forgetting  that  the 
highest  achievements  of  science  in  the  field  of  history 
are  those  that  have  been  made  in  defiance  of  the  ver- 
dicts of  society  by  men  who  have  suffered  and  died 
for  their  protest.  There  is  a  still,  small  voice  that 
speaks  within  which  tells  a  man  that  the  right  is  to  be 
followed  and  the  wrong  is  to  be  shunned,  which  con- 
demns a  man  when  he  has  succumbed  to  the  wrong 
and  refused  the  right;  and  to  all  mankind,  said  a  pagan 
writer,  the  voice  of  conscience  is  the  voice  of  God. 
Things  may  fill  us  with  amazement  in  this  world  of 
perplexities  and  antitheses,  but  none  of  us,  I  think,  will 
refuse  to  recognise  that  morality  needs  no  defence. 
For  man,  however  imperfect  his  moral  ideal  may  be, 
will  recognise  that  if  he  does  not  obey  the  voice  of 
conscience,  at  any  rate  he  ought  to  do  so,  and  there  is  a 
power  within  higher  than  himself,  nobler  than  himself. 


112      CITY    TEMPLE    SERMONS 

which  speaks  to  him  without  the  voice  of  any  preacher, 
"  This  ought  ye  to  have  done." 

It  is  one  glory  in  the  history  of  reUgion  that  the 
people  of  Israel,  however  they  may  have  come  by  their 
call,  have  identified  religion  and  righteousness. 
Whenever  I  hear  men,  and  often  young  men,  speaking 
lightly  about  the  Old  Testament  as  here  and  there  seem- 
ing to  enjoin  imperfect  morality,  I  would  like  to  plead 
with  you  to  read  and  think  a  little  more.  For,  alone 
amongst  the  religions  of  the  older  world,  that  of  Israel 
stood  out,  however  imperfectly,  as  a  declaration  of  the 
essential  unity  of  the  worship  of  God  and  the  service  of 
right.  Righteousness  and  religion  were  held  to  be 
different  aspects  of  the  same  thing.  In  a  period  and 
amongst  societies  where  religion  had  sunk  to  such 
degrading  depths  that  human  nobleness  was  ever  lift- 
ing its  voice  in  protest  against  it,  the  religion  of  Israel 
stands  out,  and  stands  out  alone,  as  the  declaration  of  a 
divine  ideal,  which,  however  imperfectly  attained  by 
those  who  professed  the  religion  of  Israel,  looked  for- 
ward to  the  establishment  of  a  kingdom  of  God 
wherein  shall  dwell  righteousness.  Some  time  before 
the  first  preaching  of  the  Christian  Gospel,  this 
religion  of  righteousness  was  in  danger  of  losing  its 
freshness  and  its  power.  At  the  time  when  Jesus  first 
began,  with  his  Gospel  of  repentance  and  of  Divine 
love,  to  teach  the  simple  fishermen  of  Galilee,  scribes 
and  Pharisees  had  managed,  by  their  interpretation  of 
the  law,  which  was  at  once  a  law  of  religion  and  a  law 
of  righteousness,  to  bind  heavy  burdens  upon  men's 
shoulders,  and  to  reduce  the  simple  moral  code  to  a 
series  of  minute  ritual  observances.  He  was  held  to 
fulfil  the  law  who  could  remember  what  to  do  cere- 


THE    DIVINE    IDEAL  113 

monially,  and  he  was  held  to  have  disregarded  the  law, 
however  faithfully,  kindly,  and  nobly  he  might  be  liv- 
ing, who  had  forgotten  or  who  never  knew  what  the 
proper  ritual  was.  Then  came  Jesus  and  swept  it  all 
away,  and,  humanly  speaking.  He  died  for  doing  it. 
His  protest  was  entered  in  the  name  of  religion  against 
the  burdensome  ritual  and  minute,  useless  observances 
with  which  men  were  troubled  in  His  day.  The  first 
and  great  commandment,  said  Jesus,  is  this,  "  Thou 
shalt  love  the  Lord  thy  God  with  all  thy  heart  and  with 
all  thy  soul  and  with  all  thy  mind  and  with  all  thy 
strength ;  this  is  the  first  and  the  great  commandment, 
and  the  second  is  like  unto  it,  Thou  shalt  love  thy 
neighbour  as  thyself."  For  the  law,  as  it  was  called, 
with  its  burdensome  code,  Jesus  substituted  a  divine 
impulse.  "  Love  is  the  fulfilling  of  the  law.  This 
ought  ye  to  do :  Love  thy  neighbour  as  thyself." 

HL  In  the  Christian  law  of  love  we  have  the  ideal 
and  the  goal  both  of  religion  and  morality.  About 
this  I  would  like  to  say  three  things :  ( i )  It  is  mis- 
chievous to  think  or  speak  of  love  to  God  as  competing 
with  our  love  to  men.  The  love  of  God  to  us  knows 
no  exceptions,  and,  if  our  Master  is  to  be  believed,  is 
not  forfeited,  however  sternly  He  may  treat  us  for  our 
misdeeds.  Our  Father,  whose  name  and  whose  nature 
are  love,  regards  us  as  His  children,  even  when  we 
have  wandered  from  Him,  even  when  we  resist  Him; 
for  sin  is  selfishness  and  rebellion  against  God.  But 
that  consciousness  of  sonship  is  not  ours  until  repent- 
ance has  brought  us  back  to  the  feet  of  the  Father,  and 
we  realise  that  love  which  was  stored  up  even  when  we 
were  in  the  wilderness  and  away  from  our  Father's 
home.     This  sweet  Gospel  of  Jesus  Christ  is  confirmed 


114     CITY    TEMPLE    SERMONS 

by  the  witness  of  the  Spirit;  for  the  first  fruits  of  the 
Spirit  in  the  heart  of  the  Christian  is  that  very  power 
to  love,  that  consciousness  of  sonship.  "  Beloved, 
now  are  we  sons  of  God,  and  it  is  not  yet  made  mani- 
fest what  we  shall  be.  The  Spirit  beareth  witness 
with  our  spirits  that  we  are  the  children  of  God." 
But  this  love  of  God  and  love  from  us  to  God  should 
never  be  allowed  to  compete  with,  or  to  be  thought  of 
in  competition  with,  in  antagonism  to,  the  love  we  are 
asked  to  give  to  one  another.  In  fact,  love  to  God  is 
fulfilled  in  love  to  men. 

I  am  in  danger  here  of  trenching  upon  the  borders 
of  mere  sentimentalism  and  ideal  fancy,  and  some, 
especially  business  men,  who  know  what  it  is  to  deal 
with  the  stern  facts  of  life,  might  tell  me  that  as  a 
preacher  I  am  up  in  the  air  and  away  from  practical 
realities  when  I  talk  about  the  operation  of  the  Chris- 
tian law  of  love  from  man  to  man.  No,  I  am  not ;  and, 
what  is  more,  you  agree  with  me  at  every  step  of  the 
road.  You  will  agree  with  this — that  if  you  could, 
by  the  waving  of  a  magician's  wand,  to-morrow,  make 
every  man  do  as  he  would  be  done  by,  recognise  his 
neighbour's  rights  to  that  which  he  himself  seeks  to 
enjoy  in  his  own  degree  and  in  his  own  sphere,  the 
kingdom  of  God  would  have  come,  there  would  be 
little  else  left  to  strive  for,  and  the  very  life  that  you 
live  now  would  be  fulfilled  in  the  life  that  you  would 
seek  to  live,  and  would  have  all  your  dear  ones  live. 
If  you  look  in  that  direction  and  keep  your  life  attuned 
to  it,  you  will  discover  that  your  attitude  towards  man- 
kind is  that  which  will  bring  about  the  fulfilment  of 
this  idea.  For  the  spirit  of  kindness,  that  of  reverent 
goodwill  as  between  man  and  man,  lived  in  the  events 


THE    DIVINE    IDEAL  115 

and  affairs  and  relationships  of  every  day,  will,  by  and 
by,  so  surely  as  the  light  follows  the  darkness,  bring 
in  the  kingdom  of  God,  and  the  kingdom  of  God  will 
come,  or  so  it  seems  to  me,  by  the  recognition  of  that 
mutual  obligation  which  is  the  fulfilling  of  the  moral 
law  between  man  and  man.  It  is  not  enough  for  a 
man  to  say  he  keeps  straight ;  that  is  a  great  deal ;  it 
means  you  do  not  wrong  your  neighbour,  and  that 
when  your  word  is  passed  it  is  as  good  as  your  bond, 
and  so  on.  But  the  love  of  which  I  have  spoken  is 
ever  in  protest  against  censoriousness ;  there  is  no 
place  for  contempt  in  the  character  of  him  who  would 
do  as  he  would  be  done  by.  There  are  many  things 
which  you  do  not  do,  you  business  men,  in  ordinary 
every-day  life,  even  in  the  adoption  of  the  right  atti- 
tude, which  would  be  done  if  you  would  only  think 
that  love  is  the  fulfilling  of  the  law. 

(2)  This  law  of  reverent  goodwill  as  between  man 
and  man  looks  upon  every  soul  as  of  eternal  value — 
looks,  in  fact,  with  the  eyes  of  Jesus  Christ.  I  heard  of 
a  poor  young  woman  who  had  a  dreadful  bereavement. 
She  had  lost  her  husband  and  her  little  child,  and  then, 
after  the  death  of  both,  another  little  one  was  bom, 
and  was  also  taken.  These  were  her  all  here,  and  you 
can  scarcely  think  of  a  much  greater  bereavement  than 
that.  It  seemed  as  if  everything  for  which  she  had 
lived,  to  which  her  nature  had  given  itself,  everything 
which  had  been  her  joy  in  service,  was  gone.  But 
speaking  of  it  in  her  patient  and  sweet  way — a  way  in 
which,  I  fear,  many  of  us  would  not  have  acted  in  like 
circumstances — she  said,  "  I  cannot  think  what  the 
meaning  of  it  is,  unless  it  be  that  I  loved  them  too 
much,  I  ought  to  have  loved  God  more,  and  so  He  took 


116      CITY    TEMPLE    SERMONS 

them  away."  That  is  not  the  God  to  whom  I  prayed 
this  morning,  nor  is  it  the  God  of  the  New  Testament, 
nor  is  it  the  Christ  in  whom  Christians  beUeve ;  for  if 
we  are  right  and  Christ  reigns  He  would  sooner  give 
the  widow's  son  back  than  take  him  away.  Your  love 
never  competed  with  the  love  of  God.  I  do  not  know 
why  husband  and  children  were  taken,  but  I  know  that 
if  you  knew  why  you  would  never  ask  for  them  back ; 
and  it  was  not  because  you  loved  them  more  than  God. 
You  fulfilled  your  duty  to  God  when  you  loved  them. 
No  one  ever  loves  anybody  too  much.  The  regret  we 
feel  when  death  has  come  and  taken  the  best  or  taken 
the  worst  is  that  we  had  not  loved  them  more.  More- 
over, though  it  would  be  possible  to  love  unwisely  or 
selfishly,  and  we  often  see  these  things,  there  is  a  cor- 
rective in  the  stern  lesson  of  death.  The  Christian 
law  of  love,  with  its  reverent  goodwill,  is  a  law  and  is 
a  love  which  will  never  spare  the  loved.  If  you  stand 
where  Christ  stands,  and  see  as  Christ  sees,  and  love  as 
Christ  loves,  those  who  are  dearest  to  you  are  those 
for  whom  you  can  never  be  satisfied  with  anything  less 
than  the  ideal.  Is  there  any  man  who  would  be  will- 
ing for  his  boy  to  become  rich  at  the  expense  of  his 
honour  and  self-respect  and  purity  as  a  man?  Would 
you  like  to  see  your  lad  a  degraded,  sensual  beast,  but 
a  millionaire?  Would  you  like  to  see  him  hard- 
hearted, cynical,  unfeeling,  vicious,  selfish  to  the  last 
degree,  but  a  master  of  men  and  a  master  of  millions  ? 
No,  you  would  not;  and  what  would  stop  you?  It 
would  be  the  love  which  asks  for  a  higher  than  that. 
Get  to  the  love  which  asks  for  the  highest,  and  then 
you  see  as  God  sees,  and  you  feel  as  God  feels ;  for  the 
law  of  which  this  apostle  speaks,  this  love  which  is  the 


THE    DIVINE    IDEAL  117 

fulfilling  thereof,  demands  the  highest,  and  will  not  be 
satisfied  with  less.  It  is  possible,  then,  that  the  great 
wrench  or  the  great  tragedy  might  come  some  day 
which  would  induce  you  as  a  father  or  a  mother  to  do 
in  this  way,  the  way  of  sternness  this  time  instead  of 
the  way  of  kindness,  that  kindness  might  prevail,  that 
love  might  be  victor  in  the  great  struggle  between  good 
and  ill. 

(3)  This  Christian  law  of  love  is  discriminating  in 
its  incidence.  I  do  not  want  you  to  feel  that  you  are 
called  upon  to  love  the  whole  world  as  you  love  your 
own  child.  If  God  had  meant  that  He  would  not  have 
given  you  a  child.  Only  He  Who  can  see  things  as 
they  are,  and  see  them  everywhere,  can  number  the 
hairs  of  the  head  of  every  man,  and  regard  every  man 
as  an  only  child.  That  is  the  way  in  which  God  thinks 
about  you ;  you  are  dear  to  God,  as  though  the  rest  of 
us  were  not  here.  But  you  can't  do  that.  That  is  why 
God  places  the  solitary  in  families;  that  is  why  He  sent 
that  precious  friend  who  has  come  into  your  life,  never 
to  go  out  again ;  you  could  not  expel  him  if  you  would. 
There  is  a  hierarchy  in  our  experience  of  the  operation 
of  the  Christian  law  of  love.  Who  has  the  first  claim 
upon  you?  For  whom  are  you  trustee?  Whose  life 
is  covered  by  yours?  God  will  ask  that  from  you 
some  day,  and  you  must  not  be  afraid  to  confess  you 
loved  as  much  as  you  possibly  could  the  nearest  first, 
for  the  sake  of  God.  God  will  require  from  you  first 
the  life  of  him  who  was  placed  in  your  charge.  Never 
try  to  evade  the  responsibilities  of  the  home  circle,  the 
business  house,  and  wherever  you  have  to  deal  with 
men.  Conscience  will  tell  you  what  to  do;  you  will 
always  know  who  has  the  first  claim  upon  your  service 


118     CITY    TEMPLE    SERMONS 

and  regard.  Employers,  though  your  circle  of  em- 
ployees may  be  small,  do  not  think  you  are  without 
responsibility  to  God.  Those  men  are  something  more 
than  units  to  be  paid  on  Saturday  night ;  they  are  souls 
over  whom  you  have  a  certain  charge,  and  you  cannot 
treat  them  as  you  would  other  people  who  are  not 
connected  with  you  by  this  bond  of  master  and  man, 
God  put  them  near  to  you;  He  gave  you  the  power 
that  you  have — a  power  over  these  lives  which  other 
men  have  not.  You  will  have  to  treat  them  so,  or  be 
held  responsible  to  the  Almighty,  who  holdeth  in  the 
hollow  of  His  hand  the  destiny  of  every  man.  The 
Christian  law  of  love  is  operative  here — not  to  all  the 
world  first,  but  to  those  who  are  in  your  power.  God 
sends  you  to  be  a  man  and  a  friend  and  an  inspiration, 
to  take  the  place  of  Christ,  in  fact,  to  those  who  are 
weaker  than  yourself.  "  Love  is  the  fulfilling  of  the 
law  "  which  operates  between  you  two.  Where  the 
Christian  law  of  love  reigns  life  is  lived  victoriously. 
So  it  may  be  for  every  man  and  woman.  No  doubt 
there  are  mourners  here;  mourners,  too,  besides  those 
whom  death  has  made  to  mourn.  Here,  it  may  be,  is 
one  who  lives  a  long  way  from  another,  who  dwells  in 
the  same  home,  eats  at  the  same  table,  partakes  of  the 
same  experiences.  You  are  mourning  about  what? 
About  the  fact  that  there  is  no  sympathy  between  you, 
no  touch  ;  that,  do  what  you  will,  you  can  get  no  nearer 
to  one  for  whom  you  would  lay  down  your  life.  You 
must  not  give  up  that  struggle.  You  feel  like  being 
conquered.  It  need  not  be  so.  Where  the  Christian 
law  of  love  reigns  you  have  come  into  partnership  with 
God,  and  this  is  His  work,  as  well  as  yours ;  and 
though  you  may  never  see  the  fulfilment  of  it  all  here. 


THE    DIVINE    IDEAL  119 

go  on  pouring  out  that  life  of  kindly  desire,  that 
reverent  goodwill,  which  brought  Christ  here  to  die 
for  you  and  for  me,  and  is  due  for  His  sake  from  you 
to  the  ingrates,  the  sinful,  the  hard-hearted,  the  evil. 
Give  it,  not  as  those  who  are  being  conquered,  but  as 
those  who  are  winning  all  along  the  line.  Remember 
that  the  truth  shall  make  you  free,  and  the  God  who  is 
truth  is  also  love. 

Beloved,  let  us  love  one  another,  for  love  is  of  God, 
and  everyone  that  loveth  is  begotten  of  God  and 
knoweth  God.  He  that  loveth  not  knoweth  not  God; 
for  God  is  love. — Amen. 


X 
CHRIST  AND  CHARACTER-BUILDING 

Love  is  the  fulfilling  of  the  law. — Rom.  xiii.  lo. 
We  love  Him,  becatcse  He  first  loved  lis, — i  John  iv.  ig. 

10VE "  is  an  unsatisfactory  word  in  many 
respects,  because  it  covers  so  many  distinct 
and  even  contradictory  meanings.  In  re- 
spect to  these  meanings,  the  Greek  language  is  richer 
and  clearer  than  ours.  We  translate  into  English  by 
one  word,  "  love,"  ideas  for  which  separate  words 
exist  in  the  New  Testament.  It  is  for  this  reason  that 
one  prefers,  for  example,  in  i  Cor.  xiii.,  the  retention 
of  the  word  "  charity,"  rather  than  the  revisers' 
equivalent  for  love.  ''  Love "  means  so  many  dif- 
ferent things,  all  of  them  constant  to  human  experi- 
ence, that  it  is  requisite,  before  proceeding  with  our 
text,  to  make  clear  what  we  mean  by  the  use  of  the 
governing  word.  I  take  it  that  here  love  means  good- 
will ;  it  means  also  benevolence  that  issues  in  self- 
sacrifice  ;  it  means  many  other  things ;  but  these,  I 
think,  are  its  primary  significance.  Let  me  illustrate 
what  I  have  been  trying  to  show  you  about  the  am- 
biguity of  the  word. 

When  I  was  driving  through  London,  I  saw  on  the 
placard  of  one  of  the  evening  papers  the  announce- 
ment— "  Another  Love  Tragedy."  When  I  bought  the 
paper  I  found  that  the  tragedy  was  the  murder  of  a 

120 


CHARACTER-BUILDING       121 

woman  by  a  man  who  said  he  loved  her.  The  motive 
which  gave  rise  to  the  tragedy  in  that  case  was  the 
very  antithesis  of  the  motive  which  inspired  Him  who, 
before  the  tragedy  at  Calvary,  said,  "  Greater  love 
hath  no  man  than  this,  that  a  man  lay  down  his  life 
for  his  friend."  The  one  was  a  selfish  destructive 
passion — they  called  it  love — and  the  other  was  the 
greatest  thing  in  the  universe,  the  last  revelation  of  the 
heart  of  God,  and  it  led  to  the  offering  of  the  Master 
on  the  Cross  of  Calvary. 

Our  second  text  demands  a  little  closer  exegesis 
before  we  pass  on.  St.  John  has  been  called  the 
Apostle  of  Love,  and  his  account  of  his  experience  is, 
"  We  love  Him,  because  He  first  loved  us."  In  the 
Revised  Version  the  word  "  Him  "  is  eliminated,  and 
the  sentence  reads,  "  We  love,  because  He  first  loved 
us."  On  reading  the  sentence  in  the  older  version, 
you  might  be  tempted  to  think,  and  you  would  not  be 
wrong,  that  we  love  Christ,  if  we  love  Him  at  all,  out 
of  gratitude;  but  there  is  a  deeper  meaning  in  the 
sentence  than  that.  We  love,  not  only  "  Him,"  but 
anybody  else,  in  the  high  and  noble  fashion  I  have 
already  indicated,  because  Christ  is  the  source  and 
inspiration  of  all  love  divine.  As  the  sun  is  the  source 
of  all  light  and  colour,  so  is  Christ  the  source  of  every 
self-sacrificing  affection  of  which  His  followers  have 
shown  themselves  capable.  We  love — love  at  all — be- 
cause He  first  loved  us. 

I  think  these  two  sentences,  with  their  matchless 
beauty  and  their  depth  of  meaning,  have  an  immediate 
and  very  real  significance  for  our  subject.  Character- 
building,  as  I  hope  will  be  plainly  evident  later  on. 

Most  men  are  willing  to  admit  the  vast,  the  almost 


122      CITY    TEMPLE    SERMONS 

transcendent  importance  of  character.  For  example, 
Professor  Romanes,  one  of  the  most  prominent  men  of 
science  in  the  nineteenth  century,  said  in  his  post- 
humous work,  which  four-fifths  of  you  must  have 
it  read,  "  It  is  surprising  how  in  the  long  run  character 
I  shows  itself  to  be  the  greatest  factor  in  human  life." 
'  From  the  point  of  view  of  philosopher  and  historian, 
Mr.  Lecky  said  in  his  "  Map  of  Life  "  substantially 
the  same  thing.  Neither  of  these  men  is  speaking  as 
a  Christian,  though  probably  both  of  them  would  not 
have  denied  the  name.  With  those  two  great  author- 
ities most  of  you  will  agree.  Character  probably  is 
the  greatest  factor  in  the  shaping  of  human  destiny. 
This  robs  God  of  notliing;  for,  if  you  fail  God,  it  mat- 
ters little  what  destiny  was  mapped  out  for  you. 

It  would  be  wrong  for  us  to  say  that  character  is  a 
matter  of  indifference  to  us,  even  when  it  be  somebody 
else's  character.  Humanity  is  one,  and  every  char- 
acter is  an  asset  of  the  race.  When  a  may  says,  as  you 
often  hear  men  say  of  one  another,  "  So-and-So  is 
his  own  worst  enemy,  and  an  enemy  to  nobody  else," 
he  is  making  a  very  superficial  remark.  That  man  is 
an  enemy  to  society  who  is  an  enemy  to  himself ;  that 
man  is  wronging  friends,  home,  country,  and  God. 
Character  is  of  the  first  importance.  It  matters  more 
than  Acts  of  Parliament;  and  if  in.  this  forthcoming 
Session  we  could  secure  that  every  man  in  England 
should  act  from  the  same  high  motive  as,  say,  the 
Prime  Minister,  or  the  Leader  of  the  Opposition,  or 
the  best  minister  of  the  Gospel,  or  your  own  father  or 
mother,  the  world  would  be  saved  straight  away,  with- 
out any  more  Acts  of  Parliament  at  all. 
Again,  I  would  have  you  remember  the  importance 


CHARACTER-BUILDING       123 

of  clearly  understanding  our  terms.  Let  us  see  just 
what  character  is.  I  will  illustrate  it  thus.  There  is  a 
man  here,  perhaps,  who  has  brought  his  little  boy  with 
him;  that  father  is,  say,  forty  years  old,  the  little  one 
is  four.  There  is  a  striking  resemblance  between 
them,  but  there  is  a  difference  too.  In  one,  tendencies 
which  have  been  reproduced  in  the  other,  have  been 
worked  out  into  history,  and  the  history  is  written  in 
his  face,  if  you  only  knew  how  to  read  it,  as  Emerson 
said.  But  you  cannot  say  that  the  little  one  has 
character;  he  has  disposition.  Every  man  starts  in 
life  as  the  steward  of  a  bundle  of  tendencies,  and  in 
living  himself  out  he  is  earning  his  character ;  and  we 
say  some  men  have  more  character  or  less  character 
than  other  people.  It  means  that  character  is  the  de- 
posit of  conduct ;  it  is  disposition  realised  and  directed 
either  for  good  or  for  evil ;  it  means  that  your  ac- 
quaintance with  life,  the  struggle  through  which  you 
pass,  the  conflicts  in  which  you  engage,  in  which  your 
manhood  is  either  beaten  out  and  ennobled,  or  de- 
feated and  degraded,  are  God's  means  for  the  realisa- 
tion of  the  man  you  are  to  be.    We  are  as — 

"  Iron  dug  from  central  gloom, 

And  heated  hot  with  burning  fears, 
And  dipt  in  baths  of  hissing  tears, 
And  batter'd  with  the  shocks  of  doom, 
To  shape  and  use." 

If  you  have  agreed  with  me  so  far,  I  think  we  can 
venture  to  stand  together  in  saying,  one  of  the  first, 
if  not  the  very  first,  of  duties  is  the  duty  of  self- 
formation. 

I  proceed  to  my  second  point.  The  highest  charac- 
ter is  the  fruit  of  an  ideal  which  is  also  a  living  force. 


124      CITY    TEMPLE    SERMONS 

In  the  world  that  you  and  I  know  conflicting  moral 
ideals  are  ever  at  work.  For  example,  the  moral 
standard  of  the  nursery  is  not  the  moral  standard  of 
the  school;  the  moral  standard  of  the  school  is  not 
the  moral  standard  of  business  life;  and  there  is  a 
standard  over  all  three  which  is  that  of  the  Church. 
You  must  have  found  this  out  for  yourself.  When 
you  became  a  man  you  smiled  at  some  of  the  maxims 
under  which  you  were  trained  as  a  child,  for  you  found 
that  father  was  not  quite  so  good  as  he  wanted  you  to 
be.  Also,  when  you  were  at  school,  you  found  that 
the  maxims  of  the  nursery  did  not  hold;  you  were 
expected  to  fight  for  your  footing,  and  so  on.  When 
you  entered  business  life  you  found  almost  a  new  code 
of  morals.  Some  of  them  jarred  heavily  upon  you, 
and  you  experienced  a  certain  sense  of  unreality  which 
accounts  for  some  of  the  abstention  from  religious 
worship — that  when  you  come  to  church  on  the  seventh 
day  the  preacher  introduces  you  to  another  realm  and 
another  standard  which  nobody  seems  to  think  of 
living.  And  yet  every  man  would  admit  that  there 
is  a  moral  ideal,  whether  we  realise  it  or  not.  We  are 
all  looking  one  way.  Any  one  character  is  the  ap- 
proximation, however  imperfect,  to  the  ideal  which 
is  so  far  above  it  as  sometimes  to  seem  inaccessible. 

This  ideal  has  commonly  been  associated  with 
religion;  but,  to  be  perfectly  frank,  religion  and  mo- 
rality are  not  the  same  thing.  I  have  heard  young  men 
say,  "  What  would  it  matter  if  I  were  to  live  up  to 
the  best  of  my  light,  be  as  good  a  man  as  circumstances 
will  let  me  be ;  what  would  it  matter  whether  I  have 
a  faith  or  no?"  I  will  show  you.  First,  you  will 
admit  that  sometimes  religion  and  morality  have  been 


CHARACTER-BUILDING       125 

in  deadly  conflict,  and  always  when  it  has  been  so  on 
the  field  of  history,  morality  has  won.  Even  to-day 
I  know  religious  men  from  whose  company  I  would 
rather  keep  free.  There  is  a  certain  type  of  sacer- 
dotalism, and  a  certain  type  of  evangelicalism,  both  of 
which  produce  unlovely  character;  and  oftentimes  we 
find  ourselves  in  the  presence  of  men  of  the  world,  as 
we  call  them — I  hope  not  opprobriously — who  are  real 
good  fellows;  and  we  say  so,  and  we  want  to  know 
what  difference  religion  could  make.  We  put  an 
indifferent  religionist  and  a  noble  moralist  side  by  side, 
and  we  say,  "  Which  of  these  is  the  better  man?  He 
cannot  be  wrong  whose  life  is  in  the  right."  The  case 
is  stated  strongly  when  we  have  said  all  this ;  but  all  I 
want  to  affirm  is  that  the  highest  character,  the 
grandest,  the  noblest,  the  most  august,  is  that  which 
religion  has  directly  formed.  Neither  religion  nor 
morality  can  reach  their  highest  without  each  other. 
Commonly  in  history — and  there  is  a  reason  for  it — 
religion  has  been  the  inspiration  of  morality,  and  com- 
pelled men  to  do  their  best.  Matthew  Arnold  said, 
"  Religion  is  morality  touched  by  emotion."  I  would 
rather  say.  Religion  is  morality  touched  with  a  sanc- 
tion ;  the  goal  of  each  is  the  same.  Their  ideal  is  one 
— the  eternal  right;  He  is  the  eternal  God.  Robert 
Browning  makes  one  of  his  principal  characters  say : 

"  I  have  always  had  one  lode-star  ;  now, 
As  I  look  back,  I  see  that  I  have  halted 
Or  hastened  as  I  looked  towards  that  star — 
A  need,  a  trust,  a  yearning  after  God." 

In  morals  we  are  living  backward,  and  the  faster  the 
better;  we  are  moving  toward  an  ideal  already  mani- 


126      CITY    TEMPLE    SERMONS 

fested  in  history  nineteen  hundred  years  ago.  We  are 
dimbing  to  Christ.  No  matter  how  fast  we  dimb  or 
how  far,  we  find  that  the  Christ  is  still  above  and 
before.  This  can't  be  evolution;  it  must  be  revolution. 
Moreover,  we  have  not  progressed  an  inch  since  St. 
Paul  wrote  the  sentence  which  is  our  first  text.  The 
race  may  have  done,  the  world,  I  hope,  has ;  England 
is  better  than  imperial  Rome;  but  we  have  produced 
no  better  man  than  St.  Paul,  and  no  sweeter  man  than 
John ;  and  both  of  them  went  as  individuals  to  the 
source  of  the  highest  that  humanity  has  ever  seen — 
Jesus  Christ  of  Nazareth.  No  man  here  is  so  indif- 
ferent to  religion,  or  so  careless  about  himself,  but  who 
will  say,  "  Jesus  is  worthy  to  be  the  moral  ideal  of 
humanity.  I  do  my  homage  unto  Him."  Ah,  wait! 
You  cannot  have  half  a  Christ ;  you  can't  take  one  side 
of  a  Saviour  without  taking  the  other.  You  must  have 
the  religious  if  you  have  the  moral ;  the  Jesus  whom 
you  affirm  to  be  God  is  the  Jesus  who  said  "  Thou 
shalt  love  the  Lord  thy  God."  The  Jesus  who  com- 
pels the  goodness  of  which  we  have  spoken  was  the 
Jesus  who  inspired  the  love  that  begot  it.  Moreover, 
it  is  this  same  Christ  who  has  become  the  conscience 
of  humanity  to-day.  We  could  not  reckon  without 
Christ  in  public,  social,  or  individual  life.  The  ideal 
of  the  manhood  of  Christ  is  the  leaven  that  is  leavening 
society.  Moreover,  the  closer  we  come  to  an  apprecia- 
tion of  the  character  of  Jesus,  the  more  clearly  does 
His  nobleness  stand  out,  as  the  ideal,  not  only  for 
imitation,  but  for  adoration.  Jesus  was  strong,  strong 
as  the  strongest.  You  have  never  fought  a  battle 
grander  or  as  grand  as  that  which  He  fought  in  His 
loneliness  on  the  eve  of  His  Passion,  when  the  poor 


CHARACTER-BUILDING       127 

timid  disciples,  who  thought  they  were  so  important 
to  Him,  "  all  forsook  Him  and  fled."  Everything  that 
you  most  admire  in  manhood  you  will  find  in  that 
lonely  figure.  What  was  the  majesty  which  com- 
pelled the  would-be  murderers  to  go  backwards,  tumb- 
ling upon  one  another,  rather  than  be  the  first  to  lay 
hands  upon  Him?  What  was  the  thoughtful  noble- 
ness which  in  the  moment  of  extremity  said,  "  Let 
these  go  their  way  "  ;  and  as  the  Galileans  fled  before 
the  rough  Roman  soldiers  and  the  rabble  of  Jerusalem, 
"  Whom  seek  ye,"  said  He,  "  Jesus  of  Nazareth  ? " 
But  they  hesitated  ere  they  laid  hold  of  Him.  Yet  he 
was  defenceless.  It  was  his  manhood  only  that  shone 
round  about  Him  and  shamed  and  awed.  Men  feared 
the  Master  when  they  were  doing  dirty  things.  They 
brought  a  poor  trembling  woman  into  His  presence; 
and,  though  He  uttered  no  word  of  reproach  He  woke 
the  womanhood  again  that  the  brutality  and  the  lust 
of  men  had  well-nigh  extinguished.  There  was  a 
man,  Jesus  Christ  of  Nazareth,  who  has  given  us 
vision  of  God. 

Now,  what  Christ  gave  to  the  world  at  that  time 
was  a  moral  ideal,  which,  translated  into  modern  Eng- 
lish, is  this :  Character  is  incomplete  except  its  last 
and  highest  manifestation  be  love.  Righteousness  is 
no  righteousness  which  has  no  room  for  compassion. 
There  is  no  goodness  shorn  of  tenderness.  A  stunted 
growth  without  the  flower  is  manhood  which  has 
nothing  of  womanhood  in  it.  The  Ethical  Society  will 
never  save  the  world.  You  don't  set  out  to  build  char- 
acter by  saying,  "  This  virtue,  and  now  that,  must  be 
added  unto  me."  No;  you  change  the  whole  outlook 
and  spirit  of  your  life.    Character  is  a  divine  impulse 


128      CITY    TEMPLE    SERMONS 

when  it  approximates  to  Christ;  and  if  any  man  has 
not  the  spirit  of  Christ  he  is  none  of  His. 

I  want  to  close  with  a  word  of  warning  and  appeal 

to  young  men.    I  have  made  no  attempt  to  be  popular, 

to  amuse  or  entertain  you.    I  have  brought  you  face  to 

face  with  the  ideal  which  is  eternal.     Jesus  Christ  is 

the  one  challenge  to  the  moral  consciousness  of  the 

world.      It    is    never  repudiated,   always  vindicated. 

How,  tested  by  the  standard  of  Jesus,  looks  the  young 

manhood  of  to-day?    I  asked  a  group  of  friends  who 

I  know  London  better  than  I  know  it,  "  What  do  you 

^  think  of  the  character  of  the  young  men  of  London 

I  to-day?"     One  said,  "There  is  a  lamentable  lack  of 

j  conscientiousness    in    the    details    of    everyday  life." 

Another  said,  "There  are  two  sorts  of  young  men: 

I  first,  the  sort  that  has  no  energy,  no  worthy  ambition, 

'no  desire  to  do  well,  either  for  himself  or  for  the  world ; 

I  there  is  another  sort,  eager,  pushing,  ambitious,  un- 
scrupulous, determined  to  succeed — don't  mind  the 
price."  I  wish  they  could  have  said  there  was  a  third, 
which  they  would  if  it  were  pressed  home — a  young 
manhood,  as  eager,  determined,  forceful,  and  strong  as 
either  of  the  others,  but  with  no  axe  to  grind,  who 
live  for  an  ideal  which  is  bigger  than  their  own  puny 
I  life,  and  who  remember  that  strength  of  character 
which  issues  in  love  is  the  ideal  of  the  Master  who  can 
never  die. 

I  have  myself  observed,  concerning  the  young  man- 
hood of  England,  some  things.  First,  I  notice  a  lamen- 
table intellectual  thinness.  So  many  young  men  do 
not  know  enough  to  get  on  with,  and  they  cannot 
think ;  I  mean  that  once  they  could  have  done  so,  but 
they  shrank  from  the  discipline;  they  did  not  seem  to 


CHARACTER -BUILDING        129 

put  into  play  the  moral  quality  which  makes  a  man 
bigger  mentally  as  well  as  spiritually.     I  notice  a  con- 
temptuous indifference  to  moral  issues,  a  willingness 
to   let  anybody   else  take   trouble,   to   shift   the  bur- 
den of  responsibility  on  to  other  shoulders.     Thank 
God  this  is  not  all  the  young  manhood  of  England; 
but  it  is  part  of  it — the  manhood   (save  the  mark!) 
which  dismisses  religion  with  a  sneer,  and  thinks  it  is 
all  done  with,  the  manhood  which  takes  life  easy  when 
it  can,  and  when  it  cannot  submits  to  circumstances,  or 
makes  another  pay  for  a  success  which  ought  never  to 
have   been   earned   so.     Lastly,   there   is   a   manhood 
which,  without  questioning  or  hesitation,  lives  the  life 
of  the  beast.     In  saying  this  I  speak  to  you  as  a  man 
and  a  brother.     Better  allude  indirectly  than  directly 
to  such  things  in  the  pulpit.    It  requires  a  special  grace 
to  handle  such  a  theme.     The  proper  place  for  the 
sewer  is  underground.    Every  young  man  knows  that 
there  is  a  temptation  to  live  the  life  of  the  beast,  and 
some  never  think  of  struggling  against  it  at  all.    There 
is  no  humiliation  in  being  tempted.    There  is  no  shame 
in  the  fierceness  of  the  contest  against  a  passion  which 
you  did  not  create ;    but  the  shame  is  in  living  below 
that  standard  of  the  manhood  which  you  know  is  that 
which  you  ought  to  live.     Think  of  the  vast  army  of 
women  in  London  to-day  living  a  delirious  existence 
in  which  excitement  is  called  happiness.     The  end  of 
such  things  is  death.    If  there  were  no  bad  men  there 
could  be  no  bad  women.    I  speak  conscientiously  when 
I  say  that  I  think  on  the  whole  women  are  better  than 
we  are;  their  spiritual  perceptions  are  quicker;  they 
seem  as  though  they  stand  naturally  nearer  to  the  di- 
vine,   But  when  a  woman  does  go  wrong,  God  help 


130      CITY    TEMPLE    SERMONS 

her;  for  she  is  usually  irreclaimable.  Never  let  it  be 
said  of  any  man  here  that  he  forgot  that  the  highest 
reach  of  manhood  is  the  protection  and  not  the  destruc- 
tion of  the  weak.  You  owe  a  duty  to  woman  for  which 
you  will  be  held  accountable  to  God. 

England  needs  men  to-day  as  much  as  she  ever 
needed  them  in  her  history.  There  is  a  danger  that  we 
are  falling  under  the  rule  of  mediocrity  in  nearly  every 
department  of  our  natural  life.  Young  men,  you  must 
change  all  that.  We  want  strong  men,  strong  with 
the  strength  which  issues  in  love ;  men  strong  as  the 
Christ  was  strong,  who  look  to  Him,  not  only  as  their 
ideal,  but  their  Master  and  their  God;  for  the  Christ 
is  not  dead,  and  wherever  manhood  lives  the  Christ  is 
at  work.  Listen  to  the  voice  with  which  He  spoke  to 
His  disciple:^  of  old,  for  that  word  was  eternal,  and 
means  much  1  )  you  and  me  at  this  hour : 

"Hear,  O  Israel.  The  Lord  our  God  is  one  Lord, 
and  thou  shalt  love  the  Lord  thy  God  zvith  all  thy 
heart,  and  zvith  all  thy  soul,  and  zvith  all  thy  mind,  and 
zvith  all  thy  strength.  This  is  the  first  commandment. 
And  the  second  is  like,  namely,  this:  Thou  shalt  love 
thy  neighbour  as  thyself." 

"  We  love  because  He  first  loved  us." 


XI 
OVERCOMING   FOR   GOD 

Be  of  good  cheer  ;  I  have  overcome  the  world. 

^John  XVI.  33. 

To  him  that  overcometh  will  I  grant  to  sit  with  Me  on 
My  throne,  evett  as  I  also  overcatne,  and  am  set  dowft  with 
My  Father  in  His  throne. — Rev.  Hi.  21. 

IT  is  fitting-  that  these  texts  should  be  taken  in  con- 
junction, especially  as  expressive  of  our  Master's 
teaching  upon  the  great  subject  we  are  about  to 
consider.  For  both  texts  purport  to  be  the  utterance 
of  Jesus ;  if  not  His  very  words,  then,  at  least,  the 
expression  of  His  mind  and  intent.  In  the  first  text 
we  have  our  Lord's  example  and  the  ground  of  our 
confidence  of  spiritual  victory ;  in  the  second  we  have  a 
call  and  a  promise  to  him  that  overcometh  of  fellowship 
with  Christ  and  the  attainment  of  that  level  of  saintly 
experience  which  can  only  be  described  as  sitting  with 
Him  in  His  throne.  Overcoming  is  a  real  thing ;  over- 
coming for  God  is  a  great  thing;  progressive  spiritual 
experience  reveals  it  stage  by  stage  and  hour  by  hour. 
I.  A  Man's  Reaction  upon  Life. — It  may  be  well  that 
we  should  attempt  a  little  change  in  statement  in  the 
first  text.  The  clause  "  Be  of  good  cheer,"  beautiful 
as  it  is,  and  redolent  with  sacred  memories,  can  be 
more  tersely  and  even  forcibly  expressed.  One  word 
with  a  note  of  exclamation  after  it  would  do — "  Cour- 

131 


132      CITY    TEMPLE    SERMONS 

age !  I  have  overcome  the  world."  Courage !  The 
true  ring  is  given  to  that  word  when  you  remember 
that  it  was  spoken  by  Jesus  Christ  in  the  hour  and 
article  of  His  Passion.  He  was  going  to  Gethsemane 
when  He  said  "  Courage !  "  to  the  disciples.  But  they 
were  going  to  no  Gethsemane,  they  were  but  sorrow- 
ing that  He  was  taken  from  them.  The  extremity  of 
His  agony  they  did  not  know,  and  they  withheld  sym- 
pathy from  Him  in  the  hour  of  His  greatest  need. 
"  Courage !  "  said  the  Master,  not  thinking  about  Him- 
self, but  about  these  timid  fishermen  who  depended 
upon  Him  for  everything.  "  I  have  overcome  the 
world."  "  Overcome  "  is  a  big  word.  It  means  there 
is  something  to  come  over,  and  getting  over  it  is  a 
thing  divine.  Even  our  Master  was  made  perfect 
through  suffering,  blessed  obstacles,  divine  agonies; 
even  Christ  pleased  not  Himself.  In  the  supreme  mo- 
ment of  His  life,  the  moment  of  the  agony  in  Geth- 
semane, and  the  dereliction  of  Calvary,  His  overcoming 
enabled  Him  to  say,  "  Courage !  "  to  those  who  had 
not  the  strength  and  could  not  share  in  His  experi- 
ence. There  is  a  massive  loneliness  about  the  Christ 
here.  In  fact,  to  speak  of  it  glibly  seems  out  of  place ; 
let  us  rather  look  into  the  august  countenance  of  Him 
who  spake  as  never  man  spake,  and  take  courage  as 
we  think  about  the  battle  that  He  fought  in  the  dark- 
ness for  us  on  that  awful  night  when  our  text  was 
spoken. 

"  I  have  overcome  the  world."  What  is  "  the 
world "  ?  It  has  several  significances  in  the  New 
Testament.  It  may  mean  the  sum  total  of  humanity — 
"  God  so  loved  the  world  "—meaning  you  and  me  and 
all  mankind.    It  may  mean,  as  here,  something  entirely 


OVERCOMING    FOR    GOD        133 

opposed  to  God,  and  which  neither  God  nor  you  ought 
to  love,  the  sum  total  of  the  tendencies  which  seek  for 
their  gratification  here  or  not  at  all;  the  aggregate  of 
the  influences  which  make  for  the  destruction  of  the 
higher  life;  and  God  in  Christ  overcame  that  world. 
Still,  the  battle  is  going  on  in  every  individual  human 
life,  and  it  is  to  this  conflict  that  we  are  summoned  in 
the  words  of  our  second  text.     See  the  different  ways 
in  which  men  face  this  great  fact,  which  all  men  must 
face  sooner  or  later,  and  do  something  with.    Our  re- 
action upon  life  means  something  like  this.    Life  comes 
to  every  man  with  certain  influences,  tendencies,  pos-  | 
sibilities,  menaces,  and  we  have  to  do  something  with  I 
it.      The  world  is  always  near;  you  cannot  refuse  to  | 
enter   into    relationship    with    it;    what    is    your    re-   t 
action  upon  this  sum  total  of  influences  which  go  to  ' 
make  up  life?     That  is  the  measure  of  your  worth. 
There  are  different  ways  in  which  men  react  upon  that 
which  we  call  life;  let  me  give  you  some  examples  of 
them. 

I.  There  is  that  which  I  may  describe  as  a  shallow 
optimism,  the  talk  of  the  man  who  leaves  to  other  peo- 
ple the  deep  thinking  and  the  serious  action,  who 
looks  upon  life  carelessly,  even  selfishly,  and  yet  may 
be  written  down  as  a  very  good  fellow.  Take  as  an 
example  Dickens's  Horace  Skimpole  in  "  Bleak 
House."  You  remember  that  this  amiable  gentleman 
was  a  favourite  in  certain  circles  because  he  brought  a 
ray  of  sunshine  with  him  wherever  he  went,  a  child- 
like artlessness,  an  unreflective  insouciance.  But  he 
left  to  other  people  the  paying  of  his  bills ;  and  he  was 
able  to  borrow  money  with  a  cunning  artlessness  which 
enabled  him  to  get  through  at  somebody  else's  cost. 


134     CITY    TEMPLE    SERMONS 

He  lived  on  the  fat  of  the  land,  but  his  nearest  and 
dearest  were  miserable.  Dickens  painted  true  to  life 
when  he  drew  Horace  Skimpole  for  us  with  such 
fidelity.  These  people  abound,  the  people  for  whom 
the  sun  is  always  shining,  who  see  very  little  to  grumble 
at  in  this  paradise  of  a  world;  but,  so  certain  as  you 
meet  a  man  like  that,  you  may  know  that  somebody 
else  is  carrying  double,  because  of  the  burden  he  re- 
fuses to  bear. 

2.  In  strong  contrast  with  such  a  philosophy  of  life, 
here  is  a  man  whose  outlook  upon  the  world  is  a  set- 
tled melancholy.  He  seems  as  if  he  cannot  avoid  look- 
ing for  the  darksome,  repellent,  and  horrific.  His 
philosophy  of  life,  if  he  has  one,  is  a  pessimism  with 
few  redeeming  features.  As  an  example,  let  me  cite 
to  you  our  British  poet,  Thomson,  the  author  of 
"  The  City  of  Dreadful  Night."  His  melancholy  be- 
came a  challenge  addressed  to  God — that  old,  old  ques- 
tion, asked  sometimes  persistently,  sometimes  intermit- 
tently— Why  dost  Thou  permit  the  world  to  be  so  bad 
and  so  sad? 

"  Who  is  most  wretched  in  this  dolorous  place  ? 

I  think  myself  ;  yet  I  would  rather  be 

My  miserable  self  than  He 
Who  formed  such  creatures  to  His  own  disgrace. 
The  vilest  thing  must  be  less  vile  than  Thou 

From  whom  it  has  its  being,  God  and  Lord, 

Creator  of  all  woe  and  sin,  abhorred 
Malignant,  and  implacable  !     I  vow 
That  not  for  all  Thy  power,  furled  and  unfurled, 

For  all  the  temples  to  Thy  glory  built, 

Would  I  assume  the  ignominious  guilt 
Of  having  made  such  men  in  such  a  world." 

That  mood,  in  varying  degrees,  is   found   among  all 


OVERCOMING    FOR    GOD        135 

classes  of  men  in  England  to-day.  It  presents  a  seri- 
ous problem,  one  that  has  to  be  faced.  For  every  one  of 
such  thinkers  and  actors  counts.  He  has  a  certain  re- 
action upon  life,  by  which  not  only  himself  is  affected, 
but  the  world  also. 

3.  Very  different  from  either  of  the  foregoing  is  the 
man  of  the  strenuous,  practical  type,  who  'acts  with- 
out reflecting  much  beyond  the  moment  in  which  he 
acts ;  the  man  who  has  big,  but  always  practical,  ideas ; 
who  strives,  being  content  with  the  moment  and  the 
sanction  of  the  moment  in  which  he  strives.  Take  as 
an  example  the  late  Cecil  Rhodes.  Some  of  you  detest 
the  very  sound  of  his  name.  (Hear,  hear.)  Some 
of  you  do  not.  (Hear,  hear.)  Does  not  that  expres- 
sion of  approval  and  disapproval  in  a  religious  con- 
gregation show  that  that  man  must  have  been  a  strong 
man  to  excite  both  admiration  and  detestation?  You 
could  not  take  him  indifferently;  you  either  had  to 
stand  on  his  side  or  were  fiercely  opposed  to  him,  if 
only  in  sentiment.  The  fact  is  that,  whatever  his 
motives  may  have  been,  and  I  do  not  seek  to  penetrate 
them,  he  was  a  practical  man,  and  believed  in  living 
the  strenuous  life,  and  he  did  it  for  objects  which  were 
beyond  his  own  interest.  We  may  take  a  living  ex- 
ample of  a  somewhat  similar  type ;  I  want  to  mention 
him  with  care,  and,  I  hope,  without  being  unduly  per- 
sonal— Mr.  Chamberlain. 

Whatever  you  may  think  about  that  great  states- 
man, you  have  to  admit  that  he  is  no  trifler.  If  the 
party  for  which  Mr.  Chamberlain  stands  at  present  is 
defeated  at  the  next  General  Election,  you  may  be  per- 
fectly certain  that  he  will  take  that  defeat  standing. 
You  admire  one  thing  about  the  man,  I  am  sure,  though 


136     CITY    TEMPLE    SERMONS 

you  may  oppose  him  fiercely,  perhaps,  and  that  is  his 
courage.  He  takes  hold  of  Hfe  with  both  hands;  whatever 
he  sets  himself  to  do  he  does  it  with  all  his  might.  And 
yet  it  would  be  no  unfair  criticism  of  Mr.  Chamber- 
lain to  say  that  neither  from  him  nor  from  Mr.  Rhodes 
have  we  ever  heard  any  strong  and  fervent  appeal  to 
the  higher  sanctions  and  the  eternal  verities.  Both  of 
them  may  have  made  it  to  themselves,  but  we  have  not 
heard  it.  To  us,  reading  from  outside,  such  lives  are 
of  the  strenuous,  practical  type;  they  react  upon  the 
world,  but  we  cannot  see  that  that  reaction  has  any  im- 
mediate connection  with  the  things  that  are  unseen  and 
eternal. 

4.  That  brings  me  to  another  type  for  which  those 
I  have  cited  have  been  preparing — that  which  Lord 
Rosebery,  in  his  address  on  Cromwell,  called  the  prac- 
tical mystic.  Some  of  you  may  not  like  the  word 
mystic.  Let  me  define  it  for  the  moment,  and 
provisionally.  The  mystic  is  a  person  who  sees  the 
Divine  in  common  things.  That  made  Carlyle  a 
mystic,  and  Ruskin,  and  Gladstone.  You  may  drop 
the  word,  if  you  like,  and  say  "  Saint."  What  we  want 
now  is  a  higher  type  than  any  I  have  named.  The 
real  want  is  God's  men  to  be  multiplied — the  fighting 
saints  of  the  world.  Amongst  these  we  may  mention,  as 
typical  of  those  to  whose  number  I  would  wish  to  add 
every  man  in  this  place,  such  a  fighting  saint  as  Whit- 
tier,  a  poet  and  a  slave-emancipator,  whose  philosophy 
of  life  is  contained  in  his  own  words : 

"  Better  to  stem  with  heart  and  hand 
The  roaring  tide  of  life,  than  lie 
Unmindful  on  its  flowery  strand 
Of  God's  occasions,  drifting  by. 


OVERCOMING    FOR    GOD         137 

Better  with  naked  nerve  to  bear 
The  needles  of  this  goading  air, 
Than  in  the  lap  of  sensual  ease  forego 
The  Godlike  power  to  do, 
The  Godlike  aim  to  know." 

We  feel  that  that  man  is  coming  very  close  to  the  great 
reality  when  he  speaks  thus  confidently  and  hopefully 
of  a  mighty  conflict  to  which  every  son  of  God  is  sum- 
moned. Rudyard  Kipling  had  just  a  touch  of  it  when 
he  wrote: 

"  If  there  be  good  in  that  I  wrought 

Thy  hand  declared  it.  Master,  Thine  ; 
Where  I  have  failed  to  meet  Thy  thought 

I  know  through  Thee  the  blame  is  mine. 
One  stone  the  more  swings  to  her  place, 

In  that  dread  temple  of  Thy  worth  ; 
It  is  enough  that  through  Thy  grace 

I  saw  nought  common  on  Thy  earth." 

From  such  a  sentiment  as  that  we  are  brought  to  the 
New  Testament,  and  we  feel  a  speedy  kinship  and 
urgent  acquaintance  with  the  great  Saviour  of  man- 
kind. The  highest  type  of  the  fighting  saint,  if  that 
word  be  not  inadequate  to  describe  Him  who  made 
saints,  was  Jesus  Christ  Himself.  When  we  picture 
the  Christ  as  weak  and  languishing,  as  to  be  pitied  be- 
cause of  His  sufferings,  as  bearing  His  cross  heavily, 
we  are  looking  at  Him  from  the  wrong  angle.  I  like 
to  think  about  my  Hero-Master.  "  Courage !  "  He 
said  in  the  moment  of  the  Passion,  and  when  the  dark 
destiny  was  coming  to  meet  Him.  Grand  in  His 
loneliness,  He  had  time  to  think  about  the  feeble  folk 
who  cowered  under  His  shoulder.  "  Let  these  go 
their  way,"  He  said,  as  He  stood  facing  the  multitude 


138      CITY    TEMPLE    SERMONS 

that  with  swords  and  staves  came  to  take  an  unarmed 
man.  "Courage!  You  will  leave  Me  alone,  and 
yet  I  am  not  alone,  because  the  Father  is  with  Me." 
And  if  for  a  moment  on  the  Cross  a  black  cloud  seemed 
to  descend  to  blot  out  the  Eternal,  and  with  it  the  face 
of  God,  and  there  was  wrung  from  the  dying  heart 
that  cry  of  human  agony,  "  My  God,  My  God !  Why 
hast  Thou  forsaken  Me?"  it  was  only  that  the  next 
instant  there  might  come  back  to  Him  that  inrush  of 
assurance :  "  Father,  into  Thy  hands  I  commend  My 
spirit  "  ;  and  so  dying,  He  lived,  and  so  defeated,  con- 
quered. Be  of  good  cheer,  therefore.  He  has 
overcome,  and  to  such  a  conflict  are  we  summoned 
too. 

n.  Our  Victory  with  Jesus  Christ. — Do  not  for  a 
moment  imagine  that  I  seek  to  identify  your  destiny 
with  His,  and  completely.  You  cannot  do  what  Christ 
did.  Something  was  wrought  out  for  you  and  me  in 
Gethsemane  and  upon  Calvary  that  never  needed  to  be 
done  again ;  we  but  fill  up  the  measure  that  is  behind. 
Nevertheless,  He  calls  us  to  a  magnificent  partnership. 
We  all  know  what  is  meant  by  the  battle  of  life.  Men 
who  care  very  little  about  Christ  know  what  I  mean 
by  the  phrase,  the  conflict  to  live.  Whether  you  will 
or  whether  you  won't,  fight  you  must.  The  measure 
of  your  worth  is,  What  are  you  fighting  for?  You 
have  come  from  your  office,  or  from  behind  the  counter, 
to  spend  a  little  while  with  God,  to  think  of  higher 
things,  if  higher  things  there  be,  and  you  will  be  back 
in  the  rush  of  it  all,  and  wondering  which  is  the  real 
life — this,  in  which  we  speak  of  a  higher  to  be,  a 
higher  that  touches  the  lower  at  every  point,  and  en- 
closes our  life  on  every  side ;  or  this  getting  of  bread 


OVERCOMING    FOR    GOD        13a 

and  butter,  this  adding  of  shilling  to  shilling,  and 
pound  to  pound ;  this  besting  your  fellows  and  winning 
a  victory  which  does  not  ensure  you  from  the  conflict 
of  to-morrow. 

Sometimes  it  would  seem  as  though  life  had  no  mean- 
ing at  all;  it  is  only. a  chaos,  and  the  best  that  you  can 
do  is  not  to  think  about  it;  and  it  may  be  that  you  have 
never  paused  to  reflect  concerning  your  reaction  upon 
it  all  or  the  reaction  of  the  eternal  upon  you.  But  you 
must  do  it,  for  the  question  is  put  to  you.  Do  you 
know  what  your  life  means  ?  It  may  mean,  as  some 
people  tell  us,  that  this  is  a  school,  and  God  has  put 
us  here  to  learn  lessons  for  eternity,  and  all  that  has 
befallen  you  is  fitting  you  to  be  a  noble  man  in  days 
to  come.  That  is  true,  but  it  is  not  all,  and  it  is  not 
half.  If  all  that  you  and  I  have  been  summoned  to 
endure  and  to  do  means  no  more  than  that  we  are 
being  made  good  by  it,  that  could  be  done  without  our 
being  sent  to  school.  But  that  is  not  it.  Man  is  an 
end  in  himself,  but  he  is  not  the  whole.  God  has  some- 
thing to  do  in  His  wonderful  universe  about  which 
He  does  not  consult  us.  We  are  put  here  to  live  some- 
thing for  God,  and  I  venture  to  say  that  the  highest 
satisfactions  you  ever  had,  my  worldly  friend,  were 
those  in  which  you  lost  sight  of  your  puny  personality, 
and  lived  for  humanity,  lived  for  your  kind.  Cannot 
you  come  to  believe  that  that  is  the  meaning  of  the 
whole  thing?  You  are  not  to  be  an  end  to  yourself, 
although  you  are  an  end  to  God.  You  may  trust  your 
destiny  to  Him  by  whom  the  very  hairs  of  your  head 
are  all  numbered.  And  take  you  care  of  nothing  less 
than  this — to  play  the  man  and  live  for  the  highest. 
Leave  the  rest  to  God.    Sure  it  is  that  the  most  blight- 


140      CITY    TEMPLE    SERMONS 

ing  thing  in  manhood  is  the  influence  of  fear.  Some 
may  feel  a  dread  of  what  is  to  be  within  the  next  hour, 
or  to-morrow,  or  the  day  after;  you  just  shiver  in  an- 
ticipation of  an  evil  that  is  impending.  Put  it  from 
you;  fear  is  the  last  thing  which  should  ever  have 
any  place  in  the  heart  of  a  child  of  God.  Shake  it 
from  you.  Come  over.  Sometimes  we  are  asked  why 
God  permits  so  much  that  is  evil.  "  Permits  "  ?  Why, 
He  sends  it.  That  old  mystic  was  right  who  said : 
"  There  is  no  doer  but  God."  Not  one  of  the  ills  of 
life  could  ever  touch  you  if  He  did  not  open  the  door. 
No  matter  how  malignant  your  assailant  might  be, 
when  anything  has  come  to  you  which  your  soul  pro- 
nounces unwelcome,  praise  God,  and  then  you  have 
come  over.  The  evils,  as  we  call  them,  of  life  are 
often  not  evils  at  all.  We  mix  up  evil  with  sin,  and 
talk  as  if  the  two  were  one.  They  are  not ;  evil  is  the 
larger  term,  and  pain  may  be  included  in  it.  You 
cannot  say  that  your  sufferings  were  good,  but  they 
make  it ;  and  I  would  not  have  pain  expelled  from  life 
for  all  the  glory  that  imagination  may  give.  That  is 
what  makes  man  great,  and  somehow  we  feel  it  when 
we  cannot  prove  it.  An  American  writer.  Professor 
James,  in  his  Gifford  Lectures,  lately  delivered  in  this 
country,  says : 

"  It  is  indeed  a  remarkable  fact  that  suft'erings  and 
hardships  do  not  as  a  rule  abate  the  love  of  life;  they 
seem,  on  the  contrary,  usually  to  give  to  it  a  keener 
zest;  and  the  sovereign  source  of  melancholy  is  reple- 
tion. Need  and  struggle  are  what  excite  and  inspire. 
Our  hour  of  triumph  is  what  brings  the  void." 

There  is  a  deep  truth  there,  and  I  do  not  wish  any 
Christian  in  thinking  about  it  to  feel  the  slightest  mis- 


OVERCOMING    FOR    GOD         HI 

giving  concerning  it.  You  are  called  to  come  over,  to 
come  up. 

I  stood  on  the  Cornish  coast  a  while,  and  on  one 
day  of  storm  I  saw  something  which  taught  me  some- 
thing. A  great  sea-bird — I  could  not  give  a  name  to 
it — rose  on  white  wings  athwart  the  stormy  sky,  and 
a  little  group  of  us  watched  for  a  long  time  his 
progress  against  the  fury  of  the  elements.  Every  now 
and  then  it  seemed  as  if  Boreas  gripped  that  frail  thing 
and  hurled  it  downwards  to  the  earth.  Had  it  been  a 
man,  it  would  have  been  dashed  to  pieces  on  the  rocks 
fifty  times.  Then  it  seemed  whirled  upside  down,  but 
always  it  turned  and  rose  again,  and  came  up  and 
came  over,  spreading  its  wings  to  the  attacking  winds; 
it  rose  and  rose  and  rose,  until  it  was  a  speck  in  the 
sky.  Like  the  sea-bird,  so  are  the  sons  of  God.  On 
the  wings  of  faith  and  hope  we  are  meant  to  rise.  Be 
glad  of  your  conflicts;  put  on  the  whole  armour  of 
God;  fight  the  good  fight  of  faith;  call  nothing  com- 
mon or  unclean.  You  have  won  your  victory  when 
you  have  estimated  that  they  that  be  with  you  are 
more  than  all  they  that  are  against  you.  Consider 
that  in  the  common  things  of  life  there  is  something 
that  we  have  to  do  for  God.  Why,  it  makes  the 
horizon  inimitably  vaster  to  think  it  is  not  for  our- 
selves, but  for  God,  and  He  will  take  care  of  you.  As 
George  Macdonald  says  in  "  Robert  Falconer "  : 
"  This  is  a  healthy,  a  practical,  a  working  faith.  First, 
that  a  man's  business  is  to  do  the  will  of  God.  Sec- 
ond, that  God  takes  upon  Himself  the  care  of  that 
man.  Third,  and,  therefore,  that  a  man  ought  never 
to  be  afraid  of  anything." 

Some  of  the  grandest  things  that  have  been  done  in 


142     CITY    TEMPLE    SERMONS 

this  world  by  heroes  of  God  have  been  done  by  those 
who  were  feebly  endowed,  as  the  world  judges,  for  the 
task  which  was  before  them;  but  they  were  done.  Not 
from  the  seen,  but  from  the  unseen,  did  they  draw 
their  strength.  It  may  be  that  my  texts,  if  not  my 
sermon,  shall  reach  someone  who  was  just  about  to 
give  up,  who  felt  that  the  problem  of  life  was  too  ter- 
rible, our  experience  of  life  too  dread,  to  enable  us 
hopefully  to  take  heart  of  grace  and  try  again.  Put 
away  from  you  all  self-ward  feelings;  you  are  just  a 
soldier  on  the  battlefield,  and  by-and-bye  you  shall  re- 
ceive the  victor's  crown,  and  sit  down  upon  the  throne 
with  the  Saviour  of  mankind.  But  the  test  and  con- 
dition before  the  winning  of  the  guerdon  are:  Can 
you  come  over?  "  To  him  that  overcometh  will  I 
grant  to  sit  with  Me  in  My  throne,  even  as  I  also  over- 
came, and  am  set  down  with  My  Father  in  His  throne." 
And  hour  by  hour,  and  moment  by  moment,  in  the 
very  midst  of  the  conflict  there  is  rest.  You  have  no 
business  to  be  miserable.  There  is  peace  in  the  con- 
flict, the  peace  of  the  heroes  of  God.  Listen  to  the 
voice  of  our  Teacher,  in  whose  words  I  address  you 
this  morning.  The  Master  of  mankind  speaks: 
"  These  things  I  have  spoken  unto  you,  that  in  Me 
ye  might  have  peace.  In  the  world  ye  shall  have 
tribulation,"  of  course,  "  but  be  of  good  cheer;  I  have 
overcome  the  world.  .  .  .  My  peace  I  give  unto  you. 
Not  as  the  world  giveth,  give  I  unto  you.  Let  not 
your  heart  be  troubled,  neither  let  it  be  afraid." 


XII 
CONSCIENCE  IN  COMMON  LIFE 

What  doth  the  Lord  require  of  thee,  but  to  do  justly,  and 
to  love  mercy,  and  to  walk  huvibly  with  God? 

—Micah  vi.  8. 

A  GOOD  deal  of  time  has  been  occupied  in  aca- 
demic discussions  as  to  the  origin  of  that  fac- 
*  ulty  of  human  nature  which  we  call  conscience. 
The  theories  advanced,  and  which,  it  goes  without  say- 
ing, often  conflict  with  each  other,  and  none  of  which, 
perhaps,  is  precisely  adequate,  may  be  ultimately  re- 
duced to  two.  We  have,  on  the  one  hand,  that 
familiar  view,  which  may  best,  perhaps,  be  expressed 
in  the  words  of  that  pagan  philosopher  who  is  quoted 
in  Pusey's  "  Spiritual  Letters  " :  "  To  all  mankind  con- 
science is  God.  The  judgment  of  each  will  be  how  he 
has  listened  to  that  voice."  Without  committing  my- 
self to  that  view,  I  may  state  the  extremes  thus.  The 
naturalistic  view  of  the  origin  of  conscience  is  that  it 
represents  the  deposit  of  social  sanctions  which  have 
come  down  to  us  from  bygone  ages.  In  that  view 
conscience  is  just  one  of  Nature's  expedients  for  the 
preservation  of  her  handiwork ;  the  whole  human  race 
is  but  one  of  Nature's  instruments — the  faculty  of  con- 
science implanted  within  the  human  soul— ah  ! — per- 
haps I  had  better  not  say  so — within  the  human  mind 
is  one  of  Nature's  expedients  to  keep  the  race  from 

143 


144      CITY    TEMPLE    SERMONS 

destroying  itself  and  spoiling  hei*  work.  The  explana- 
tion of  that  theory  is  something  of  this  kind.  By  the 
gradual  elimination  of  the  unfit,  Society  has  half-un- 
consciously  discovered  what  is  best  fitted  to  survive; 
Society  has  an  instinct  of  self-preservation.  Con- 
sequently she  will  not  tolerate,  never  has  tolerated, 
anything  which  would  seriously  threaten  that  exist- 
ence. If  any  individual  has  ever  exalted  his  own 
interests  at  the  expense  of  Society,  he  is  treated  as  a 
monster,  and  put  an  end  to  in  some  way  or  another. 
Such  a  process  as  this,  continued  from  age  to  age,  has 
supplied  every  individual  with  certain  tendencies  of  a 
social  kind  which  have  come  to  be  known  as  conscience. 
There  is  no  other  origin  of  conscience,  say  the  natural- 
ists, than  this.  Men  have  somehow  come  half-uncon- 
sciously  to  obey  that  which  in  any  case  Society  would 
require.  One  damning  criticism  of  that  view  may  be 
stated  in  a  very  few  words.  It  is  that  the  very 
highest  achievements  of  conscience  have  been  made, 
not  in  accordance  with,  but  in  defiance  of,  the  sanc- 
tions of  the  Society  of  the  time.  I  call  to  mind  the 
figure  of  Latimer  tied  to  the  stake  in  front  of  Balliol 
College,  Oxford ;  I  hear  the  mob  around  him  howling 
execrations,  as  the  mob  is  apt  to  do  at  a  great  man, 
suddenly  become  helpless ;  and  I  hear  the  martyr  say- 
ing, "  Be  of  good  cheer,  Master  Ridley ;  we  shall  this 
day  light  such  a  candle  in  England  as,  by  God's  grace, 
I  trust  shall  never  be  put  out,"  and  it  never  has  been. 
But  a  man  had  to  die  to  make  that  possible,  and  the 
achievement  to  which  his  conscience  prompted  him  was 
one  that  was  taken  in  actual  defiance  of  the  social 
sanctions  and  the  social  demands  of  his  hour.  I  go 
back  a  few  years,  and  I  see  the  monk  of  Wittemberg 


CONSCIENCE  145 

standing  face  to  face  with  the  princes  of  Germany  and 
tlie  representatives  of  that  great  Church  whose  man- 
date at  times  made  princes  tremble ;  I  see  him,  unaided 
and  alone,  claiming  a  sanction  not  heard  from  other 
lips  than  his  at  that  moment  for  his  action  in  defying 
that  great  ecclesiastical  organisation.  If  they  are 
right,  he  is  wrong.  What  business  has  he  to  exalt  his 
opinion?  Because  of  something  unseen  and  eternal. 
A  great  organised  Society  pronounces  against  him, 
and  his  response  is  this :  "  Here  stand  I ;  I  can  none 
other,  so  help  me,  God."  Countless  instances  might 
be  furnished  in  support  of  my  statement  that  the  high- 
est achievements  of  conscience,  whatever  its  origin 
may  have  been,  have  been  made,  not  in  alliance  with, 
but  in  defiance  of,  the  ordinary  accepted  canons  and 
verdicts  of  Society.  We  may  say  this  without  very 
much  fear  of  contradiction,  without  being  academic 
about  the  origin  of  conscience.  We  know  that  it  is 
the  most  unequivocal  witness  within  the  individual 
soul  to  a  higher  than  self.  There  is  no  man  without 
that  witness,  and  there  are  few  men  who  would  not, 
and  at  once — in  theory  at  least — pay  homage  to  it. 
Such  phrases  as  right  and  conscience,  conscience  and 
right,  are  upon  the  lips  of  men  who  believe  in  no 
other  world  than  this.  We  hear  many  a  man,  in  deny- 
ing theologies,  in  refusing  credence  to  revealed  re- 
ligion, in  denying  perhaps  the  existence  of  God,  de- 
clare, "  He  cannot  be  wrong  whose  life  is  in  the 
right."  He  does  not  stop  to  dispute  about  the  fact 
that  there  is  a  right;  he  simply  ranges  himself  on  the 
side  of  it,  as  though  it  were  an  eternal  somewhat  de- 
claring itself  within  his  soul.  Though  all  the  world 
said  no,  if  he  be  an  honest  man,  and  know  the  right. 


146      CITY    TEMPLE    SERMONS 

he  will  continue  to  say  yes,  "  Because  right  is  right, 
to  follow  right,  were  wisdom  in  the  scorn  of  conse- 
quence." 

But  conscience  is  not  to  be  blindly  followed.  His- 
tory teaches  us  that  the  most  serious  menaces  of  society 
in  the  past — perhaps  I  might  almost  say  in  the  present 
— have  been  the  behaviour  of  conscientious,  narrow- 
minded  men.  Canon  Gore,  now  Bishop  of  Worcester, 
has  said,  a  man's  first  duty  is  to  educate  rather  than  to 
obey  his  conscience — to  educate  before  he  does  obey. 
A  man  should  see  clearly,  know  well,  before  he 
gives  himself  in  vigorous  and  enthusiastic  self-com- 
mittal to  what  his  conscience  tells  him  is  the  ideal 
life,  the  good  and  the  true.  Yet  every  man  will  bear 
me  out  in  saying  you  have,  if  you  are  a  worthy  man, 
and  are  trying  to  adjust  your  life  to  that  which  is 
worthy,  to  try  to  obey  the  monition  of  the  still,  small 
voice,  and  you  must  not  make  yourself  captive  to  any 
man.  Something  tells  you  what  to  do;  you  have 
before  you  in  every  circumstance,  in  every  crisis,  an 
ideal  of  the  right,  and  you  are  called  upon  to  obey  it. 
You  can  get  no  further  than  to  say  the  Eternal  speaks 
to  you  in  the  word  ought.  You  disobey  it  at  your 
peril.  Though  we  differ  in  details,  and  conscience 
may  lead  one  man  that  way,  and  another  this,  neverthe- 
less that  there  is  such  a  thing  as  right  you  are  perfectly 
sure,  and  that  it  is  a  bigger  thing  than  your  particular 
interest  or  individual  opinion.  What  more  can  we  say 
than  this,  "  The  light  that  lighteth  every  man  that 
cometh  into  the  world,"  has  told  us ;  "  He  hath  showed 
thee,  O  man,  what  is  good,  and  what  doth  the  Lord 
require  of  thee,  but  to  do  justly,  and  to  love  mercy,  and 
to  walk  humbly  with  thy  God  ?  " 


CONSCIENCE  147 

Yet  we  know  that  every  day  around  us  men  are 
either  openly  defying  conscience,  or  tacitly  compromis- 
ing with  it.  Good  Christian  people  tell  us  that  it  is 
impossible  to  do  other  than  compromise  now  and  then 
the  highest  that  you  are  able  to  see.  To  young  men  I 
would  especially  say,  let  someone  else  give  you  those 
prudential  maxims.  Never  you  be  forced  to  compro- 
mise unless  it  be  with  your  face  to  the  light.  I  can 
understand  a  compromise  which  means  you  have  come 
to  a  wall  and  you  cannot  get  further ;  you  are  looking 
and  straining  and  waiting  for  the  opportunity  to  grasp 
the  idea  towards  which  all  your  energies  have  been  set, 
but  the  compromise  which  means  turning  your  back 
upon  the  light  which  you  have  seen  is  a  compromise  to 
which  I  hope  no  young  man  will  ever  give  himself. 
There  are  ways  in  which  we  are  daily  compromising 
with  what  we  know  is  the  voice  of  conscience  and  the 
ideal  of  life.  We  compromise  in  business  life  by  the 
use  of  false  maxims  in  regard  to  our  practice.  Here 
is  one  of  them :  That  moral  and  spiritual  relationship 
between  employer  and  employed  is  not  business. 
Then  what  is  business?  It  merely  means  that  you  are 
to  make  a  living  and  to  secure  as  much  as  you  can  of 
this  world's  goods ;  get  as  much  as  you  can,  and  keep 
as  much  as  you  can  get.  These  are  poor  maxims, 
though  they  be  prudential.  To  see  a  young  man  with 
them  is  a  sorry  sight  indeed.  I  will  tell  you  what 
business  is.  Business  means  that  you  are  daily  deal- 
ing with  spiritual  symbols  when  you  come  into  inter- 
course with  your  brother  men,  when  you  come  into  the 
counting-house,  the  shop,  or  the  journalist's  office. 
You  have  done  nothing  to-day  but  what  has  a  spiritual 
significance,    has    reacted    upon    your    character,    has 


148      CITY    TEMPLE    SERMONS 

helped  to  fashion  your  destiny,  has  had  influence  on 
somebody  else.  You  have  been  dealing-  with  spiritual 
entities,  and  the  resultant  of  what  you  have  been  doing 
must  be  measured  in  spiritual  equivalents.  Has  it 
never  struck  you  as  strange  that  by  God's  ordinance 
you  spend  eight,  ten,  twelve,  or  more  hours  every  day 
in  drudgery — the  little  time  that  you  can  spare  for  the 
higher  life,  perhaps  this  one  hour,  and  a  few  minutes 
before  you  go  to  bed?  And  all  the  rest  means — 
what?  Nothing  but  clothing  your  body,  pleasing  your 
appetite,  getting  through  and  preparing  for  the  end, 
when  even  your  dearest  will  bury  you  as  the  dead  out 
of  their  sight? 

"  Our  hearts  like  muffled  drums  are  beating 
Funeral  marches  to  the  grave." 

Is  that  what  you  spent  ten  or  twelve  hours  a  day  in 
drudgery  for  ?  God  does  his  business  badly  if  it  be  so. 
But  it  is  not.  This  is  not  the  place  where  we  live  the 
higher  life.  Here  we  are  just  talking  about  it.  Out- 
side and  in  the  business  we  live  it.  When  you  deal 
with  a  man  across  the  counter,  when  you  are  quoting 
to  him  concerning  stocks  and  shares,  you  are  doing 
something  that  affects  human  destiny  and  will  go  on 
affecting  it  when  you  are  no  more.  It  all  means,  as 
Robert  Louis  Stevenson  said  in  "  Doctor  Jekyll  and 
Mr.  Hyde,"  it  means  intent.  There  is  nothing  that 
matters  little.  If  business  men  would  only  think  hour 
by  hour  of  the  sanction  of  their  business  life,  they 
would  not  find  it  so  difficult  to  bring  all  life  into  har- 
mony with  the  spirit  of  our  text :  "  What  doth  the  Lord 
require  of  thee  but  to  do  justly,  and  to  love  mercy,  and 
to  walk  humbly  with  Him  ? " 


CONSCIENCE  149 

That  means  that  at  once  there  is  a  relation  of  mutual 
trusteeship  between  employer  and  employed.  It  mat- 
ters very  much  to  you  what  that  man  over  whom  you 
have  power  is  doing  with  the  rest  of  his  time,  when  he 
has  passed  from  your  sight.  It  matters  very  much 
what  opportunity  you  give  him  of  leading  the  right 
life  and  the  highest.  It  matters  a  great  deal  what  ideal 
you  are  setting  before  him.  He  is  either  better  or 
worse  because  of  what  he  knows  of  you.  This  is 
business,  the  highest  business,  for  which  the  counting- 
house  is  just  the  opportunity. 

Sometimes  employers  tell  me  that  it  is  very  difficult 
to  discover  a  man  of  character,  that  they  are  perfectly 
willing  to  pay  for  character  when  they  can  find  it,  but 
that  the  lack  of  conscientiousness  is  positively  appall- 
ing. This,  I  am  compelled  to  believe,  is  true.  Good 
servants  are  a  rare  entity.  A  man  cannot  be  trusted, 
as  a  rule,  behind  your  back ;  when  yo"u  find  a  man  who 
can,  it  is  worth  your  while  to  pay  him,  so  you  tell  me, 
as  much  as  you  can  possibly  afford  out  of  your  profits. 
On  the  other  hand,  young  men  sometimes  tell  us  that, 
no  matter  what  they  do  for  their  master,  he  just  re- 
gards them  as  a  chattel,  as  a  means  to  dividends,  and 
nothing  more.  Thank  God,  all  employers  are  not  like 
it ;  but  if  there  are  any  they  are  sinning  against  God. 
No  man  is  a  chattel ;  no,  not  even  if  he  be  an  unworthy 
servant.  You  have  some  responsibility  towards  him, 
and  only  when  that  responsibility  is  carried  to  the 
.point  where  service  for  him  becomes  a  menace  and  an 
injustice  to  what  you  owe  to  other  people  are  you 
justified  in  severing  the  relationship  between  you  twG. 
A  man  matters  because  a  man  is  a  soul.  Sometimes 
those  who  are  in  your  power  are  treated  as  if  they  had 


150     CITY    TEMPLE    SERMONS 

no  soul.  A  young  fellow  tells  me  about  his  cheerless 
life,  his  loneliness  in  the  great  city,  the  hardness  it 
engenders,  the  cynicism  which  steals  over  him,  because 
he  feels  that  he  just  fills  a  niche  for  a  little  time  in  a 
business  office,  and  by-and-bye  he  is  liable  to  be  thrust 
out  at  the  caprice  of  a  man  who'  has  power  to  say 
"  Come  "  and  "  Go."  Again,  we  are  told  that  from 
the  employee  is  required  service  which  no  conscien- 
tious man  ought  ever  to  render.  One  of  the  false 
maxims  of  our  business  life  is  that  trade  lies  are 
necessary.  If  society  requires  trade  lies,  and  is  built 
upon  them,  so  much  the  worse  for  society.  We  are 
wrong  all  round,  and  we  are  losing  all  round.  If  it 
be  true,  as  I  am  told,  that  to  gain  z  footing  in  a  new 
district  you  have  to  bribe  your  way  inch  by  inch  with 
the  subordinates  in  this  institution  or  that,  there  is 
something  against  which  a  conscientious  man  should 
protest  with  all  his  might.  I  am  told  the  employer  will 
sometimes  require  from  his  subordinate  that  the  lie  be 
told  without  a  blush  and  the  purchaser  deceived  be- 
cause he  is  ready  to  deceive  in  his  turn.  It  will  be  a 
bad  day  for  England  when  that  becomes  general — pray 
God  it  never  may !  Only  the  day  before  yesterday  one 
young  fellow  asked  me  an  opinion  as  to  his  proper 
course  of  action.  He  said :  "  I  am  in  the  antique 
trade;  it  sometimes  happens  that  we  have  to  offer 
for  sale  to  a  collector  an  article  which  appears  per- 
fectly genuine.  If  a  collector  did  not  ask  for  it,  I 
would  sell  it  for  a  small  sum  and  say  what  it  was ;  but 
if  a  collector  asks  for  it  I  am  compelled  by  my  master's 
commands  to  ask  ten  times  its  value.  I  must  do  it,  or 
I  must  go.  Now,  what  would  you  tell  me  to  do  ?  " 
It  is  all  very  well  for  a  preacher  to  sit  in  his  arm- 


CONSCIENCE  161 

chair  and  look  noble  and  spiritual  and  highly  moral, 
and  give  an  opinion  which  amounts  to  a  command. 
But  I  will  confess  that  I  hesitated  when  I  heard  what 
were  that  young  man's  responsibilities  and  his  chances 
of  a  new  situation ;  but  only  for  a  moment.  There  are 
no  two  ways  about  a  thing  like  that.  That  is  a  lie 
that  you  are  asked  to  tell,  a  bad  lie,  a  lie  by  which  you 
intend  to  exploit  the  person  who  is  dealing  with  you, 
a  lie  which  he  believes  to  be  the  truth ;  a  lie  which, 
though  your  employer  be  the  principal  gainer,  and 
upon  him  rests  the  principal  responsibility,  reacts  upon 
you.  Come  out  of  that  business;  let  it  go.  I  would 
say  to  you,  in  the  simple  words  which  you  heard  in 
your  childhood  and  many  a  time  sang  in  the  Sunday- 
school: 

"  Courage,  brother,  do  not  stumble, 
Though  thy  path  be  dark  as  night ; 
There's  a  star  to  guide  the  humble — 
Trust  in  God  and  do  the  right." 

Then  they  tell  me  that  it  often  happens  in  trade  that 
the  man  who  has  set  before  him  the  Christian  ideal 
finds  himself  in  danger  of  ruin.  He  cannot  compete 
with  the  men  who  don't  allow  conscience  to  stand  in 
their  way.  Not  many  miles  from  this  spot  I  know  one 
such  instance — a  man  who  tried  to  act  squarely  every 
day,  and  at  the  beginning  of  the  day  resolved  that 
there  should  be  no  lies  told,  not  even  by  silence;  he 
would  offer  for  a  fair  price  that  which  would  bring 
him  a  fair  profit.  The  result,  he  tells  me,  is  that  his 
business  has  been  gradually  going  down.  If  that  is 
so,  I  pity  the  man  who  alone — and  he  must  be  alone 
— makes  such  a  fight.  But  I  would  like  to  tell  any- 
body like  him  that  is  here  not  to  think  that  you  are 


152     CITY    TEMPLE    SERMONS 

necessarily  going-  to  fail;  for  in  some  cases,  at  least, 
I  have  known  the  precise  opposite — a  brave  man  and 
a  good  has  come  out  on  top.  When  men  knew  that 
his  word  was  as  good  as  his  bond,  that  his  Christian 
character  was  to  be  relied  upon,  and  was  not  lip 
testimony,  they  trusted  and  stood  by  him.  So  that 
there  is  even  here  a  spiritual  dividend  for  him  who 
will  do  justly  and  love  mercy  and  walk  humbly 
with  God.  But  if  there  were  not,  let  it  be  just 
the  same.  Go  straight  in  your  relations  with  men, 
live  as  before  the  face  of  God,  and  if  He  lets  you 
down,  ask  Him  why  it  is,  and  o'lr  Father,  who  seeth 
in  secret,  will  reward  thee  openly.  For  all  is  not 
yet.  You  may  have  to  be  contented  with  a  little  in  this 
world ;  this  world  is  only  a  corner  of  the  real  one,  and, 
by-and-bye,  you  will  see  to  the  full  the  meaning  of  the 
discipline  through  which  you  have  been  called  to  pass. 
Again,  there  is  a  compromise  with  conscience  in  our 
use  of  our  leisure  time.  Some  young  fellows  have 
told  me  that  they  will  have  nothing  to  do  with  religious 
people,  and  they  are  not  going  to  promise  themselves 
to  any  religious  organisation ;  for,  they  say,  it  is  im- 
possible to  be  other  than  a  hypocrite  if  you  join  a 
religious  society  and  then  try  to  live  as  the  times  de- 
mand. But,  young  man,  you  are  a  hypocrite  already. 
If  you  have  seen  the  highest  and  refused  to  obey,  what 
are  you  but  a  hypocrite?  You  do  not  stand  in  the 
least  higher  than  the  man  who  has  joined  a  religious 
society,  in  the  hope  that  God  may  enable  him  to  re- 
deem the  time.  Leisure  time,  as  it  is  called,  is  fre- 
quently employed  for  orgies.  One  serious  danger  of 
the  hour  is  that  which  is  so  often  referred  to  as  to  have 
become  commonplace — the  craze  for  excitement  in  one 


CONSCIENCE  153 

form  or  another — the  stage,  the  football  field,  and 
worse.  There  is  nothing  wrong,  intrinsically,  about 
healthy  recreation,  but  when  it  has  ceased  to  be 
the  servant  and  become  the  master,  woe  to  you.  Rud- 
yard  Kipling  was  severely  criticised  for  talking  about 
the  "  muddied  oafs  "  at  the  goal.  It  may  have  been 
vigorous  language  unpoetically  expressed,  but  there 
is  some  danger  lest  the  craze  even  for  athleticism — 
and  I  stop  there — should  drive  out  every  higher  idea 
from  the  minds  of  its  victims.  The  whole  conversa- 
tion of  some  young  fellows  is  football,  or  cricket,  or 
the  turf.  So  soon  as  excitement  of  that  kind  lays  grip 
upon  a  man's  mind,  in  some  way  it  seems  to  act  upon 
his  conscience.  It  is  but  a  step  to  the  gambling-table 
and  the  drinking-hell,  for  these  things  flourish  in  the 
atmosphere  I  have  described. 

But,  more  than  that,  we  have  the  idle  rich 
around  us.  Perhaps  it  does  not  become  us,  as 
members  of  the  middle  class,  to  tell  the  higher 
grade  what  it  ought  to  do,  but  sometimes  one 
is  filled  with  misgiving  when  one  hears  and  reads  of 
the  condition  of  English  Society  to-day.  Such  a  case 
as  that  of  Lady  Granville  Gordon — whom  God  pity ! 
— reveals  a  condition  of  rottenness  against  which  every 
Christian  man  in  every  grade  of  society  ought  to  set 
his  face  with  intensity.  It  matters  much  to  us  who 
love  our  country.  I  am  told  there  are  Society  women 
who  live  the  lives  of  pigs  in  their  country  houses. 
How  many  there  may  be  God  only  knows.  But  what 
a  life  it  must  be!  Surely  there  is  something  of  re- 
sponsibility resting  upon  us  for  a  clear  witness  against 
a  state  of  things  which  threatens  ruin  to  our  country, 
just  as  it  brought  ruin  to  Imperial  Rome.    We  cannot 


154     CITY    TEMPLE    SERMONS 

clear  ourselves  of  such  responsibility.  We  must  not 
ignore  these  things.  Where  the  privileged  and  un- 
fettered indulge  such  bestial  instincts  as  the  army  of 
women  upon  our  streets  in  London,  less  fortunate,  in 
whom  the  same  practice  and  the  same  life,  encouraged 
by  some  of  those  whom  we  meet  and  talk  with  day  by 
day — a  life  made  possible  because  of  the  atmosphere 
that  these  women  have  been  permitted  to  breathe,  and 
for  which  we  cannot  rid  ourselves  of  responsibility — it 
must  bring  its  natural  penalty,  and  in  this  world.  He 
who  thus  trifles  with  God's  opportunities  may  some 
day  be  asked  to  account  for  another's  fall,  besides  his 
own.  Here  I  question  myself  in  company  with  you. 
There  is  a  compromise  with  conscience,  which  is  a 
luxurious  indifference  to  the  state  of  things  I  have 
taken  a  moment  to  describe.  You  may  ask  yourself 
what  matters  it  to  you  that  at  our  gates  men  are  living 
lives  of  vice  and  wickedness  and  ignorance.  It  mat- 
ters much  to  you,  for  we  are  trustees  of  a  higher  life 
which  God  has  given  us  to  see.  If  we  spend  our  lives, 
even  in  a  modest  way,  in  comfortable  indifference  to 
what  our  brethren  are  doing  in  the  great  city  or  in  the 
great  Empire  to  which'  we  belong,  we  are  sinning 
against  God.  Our  earthly  citizenship  demands  some- 
thing more,  and  it  must  be  rendered  to  our  Heavenly 
Father. 

I  believe  in  a  patriotism  which  is  not  often  asserted 
to-day.  "Mafficking"  is  one  thing;  to  stand  by 
your  country,  and  to  believe  in  those  who  are  of  your 
blood  and  speech,  is  another.  If  God  had  meant  us  to 
be  entirely  cosmopolitan,  he  would  not  have  planted 
the  solitary  in  families.  If  England  has  a  mission  to 
the  world,  we  are  summoned  to  be  loyal  to  England. 


CONSCIENCE  155 

Have  mercy  upon  the  fallen,  and  live  so  yourself  that 
it  will  be  difficult  for  them  to  fall.  The  Lord  requires 
something  from  those  of  us  who  have  time  to  take  care 
of  ourselves.  There  is  a  beauty  owing  to  our  fellows 
for  the  sake  of  the  Lord,  who  has  given  us  the  time 
in  which  we  live  and  the  opportunities  to  live  as  we  do. 
Strive  for  the  highest ;  it  is  within  reach  of  everyone. 
Live  for  God.  The  best  way  to  do  it  is  to  raise  the 
fallen,  cheer  the  faint,  heal  the  sick,  and  lead  the  blind. 
I  cannot  pretend  that  I  have  no  responsibility,  nor  can 
you.  It  is  practice  that  matters,  not  preaching.  If 
a  new  revival  of  religion  is  coming — and  I  am  one  of 
those  who  hope  for  it — I  believe  it  will  show  itself  in 
social  redemption ;  spiritual  men  will  fight  the  fiercest 
battle  on  behalf  of  the  hungry,  the  poor,  and  the  sad, 
and  for  Christ's  sake  men  will  brothers  be  to  those 
less  fortunate  than  themselves,  and  will  try  to  under- 
stand before  they  condemn.  Deal  justly,  love  mercy, 
and  walk  humbly  with  God.  "  For  they  that  be  wise 
shall  shine  with  the  brightness  of  the  firmament,  and 
they  that  turn  many  to  righteousness  as  the  stars  for 
ever." 


XIII 
PERSONAL    IMMORTALITY 

If  a  man  die,  shall  he  live  again  ? — fob  xiv.  14, 
Because  I  live,  ye  shall  live  also.^John  xiv.  ig. 

THIS  is  a  question  asked  in  the  Old  Testament 
and  answered  in  the  New;  asked  in  a  g-ood 
many  cases,  but  nowhere  perhaps  so  plainly  as 
in  this  chapter  and  this  book.  But  the  question  which 
is  left  a  little  uncertain  in  the  Old  Testament,  or  to 
which  an  affirmative  answer  is  given  with  hesitating 
voice,  becomes  a  triumphant  certainty  in  the  New. 
Christianity  came  to  tell  us  about  the  deathless,  age- 
less life,  on  the  authority  of  Him  through  whom  life 
and  immortality  have  been  brought  to  light.  His 
words  ring  in  our  ears  in  confirmation  of  this  text, 
which  is  our  promise  and  our  surety :  "  Because  I  live 
ye  shall  live  also,"  "  I  am  the  resurrection  and  the  life ; 
he  that  believeth  in  Me,  though  he  were  dead,  yet  shall 
he  live ;  and  whosoever  liveth  and  believeth  in  Me  shall 
never  die." 

It  is  sometimes  said  that  interest  in  the  subject  of 
personal  immortality  is  not  what  it  used  to  be,  that  in 
point  of  fact  the  world — by  which  we  mean  humanity 
— is  becoming  increasingly  secular  in  interest  and  in 
outlook.  Some  of  you  are  doubtless  familiar  with  the 
words  of  that  great  scholar,  historian,  and  thinker,  Mr. 
Lecky.     In  his  "  Rise  and  Progress  of  Rationalism  in 

156 


PERSONAL    IMMORTALITY   157 

Europe,"  Mr.  Lecky  tells  us  that  undoubtedly  men  are 
becoming  increasingly  secular  in  the  focus  of  their 
interests.  We  may  learn  something  from  the  silences 
of  the  pulpit.  Ministers  and  elderly  men  will  both 
agree  with  me  that  whereas  once  upon  a  time  sermons 
were  always  charged  with  appeals  based  upon  the 
tremendous  issues  of  conduct,  not  for  time  but  for 
eternity,  nowadays  we  have  become  so  practical  that 
appeals  are  not  made  from  sanctions  drawn  from  con- 
siderations of  judgment  to  come,  and  the  blessedness 
of  heaven  or  the  terrors  of  retribution.  Now,  mark 
this.  In  history  it  has  always  been  true  that  when  the 
pulpit  has  taken  to  moralising,  morality  has  lost  its 
dynamic.  We  can  learn  our  morals  elsewhere,  pru- 
dence will  teach  us  the  importance  of  a  certain  regard 
to  conduct ;  but  the  highest  achievements  of  conscience 
in  any  century  have  been  made,  not  in  accordance  with 
the  dictates  of  prudential  maxims,  but  in  obedience  to 
the  tremendous  sanctions  drawn  from  the  consideration 
of  man's  eternal  citizenship. 

Again,  we  are  told  tlia't  to-day,  intellectually,  there 
is  more  uncertainty  about  the  fact  of  personal  immor- 
tality than  there  ever  was  before :  and  perhaps  that  is 
true,  though  not  so  true  as  some  of  you  think.  We 
are  less  certain  in  some  ways  because  of  a  new  habit 
of  mind  induced  by  acquaintance  with  the  methods  of 
modern  science.  Young  men,  who  know  nothing  at 
all  about  science,  are  under  the  domination  of  certain 
notions,  derived  from  the  methods  of  science,  and  you 
regard  nothing  as  proven  which  has  not  been  the  result 
of  conclusions  arrived  at  after  laborious  observation 
and  experiment.  In  other  words,  that  is  proof  to  you 
which   has   been   obtained   by   the   inductive   method. 


168      CITY    TEMPLE    SERMONS 

Now,  young  men,  permit  me  to  say  that  there  is 
another  kind  of  proof  than  this.  I  want  you  to  con- 
cede this  before  we  approach  the  heart  of  the  great 
subject  we  have  in  hand.  There  is  another  kind  of 
proof  than  that  which  is  derived  from  the  inductive 
method.  Moreover,  nothing  can  be  absolutely  proven 
even  by  that  method.  And  again,  the  things  which 
you  do  daily,  the  objects  to  which  you  give  yourself, 
the  aims  of  which  you  are  most  conscious  and  to  which 
you  devote  your  energies  with  most  enthusiasm  are  not 
the  result  of  your  inductive  proofs,  have  little  to  do 
with  observation  and  experiment,  but  are  rather  the 
fruit  of  a  Divine  impulse.  The  best  things  in  human 
nature  are  not  the  things  which  you  stop  to  reason 
about  at  all,  but  the  things  that  you  feel  and  know  and 
see  to  be  the  highest. 

Again,  it  is  said  that  to-day  there  is  a  cessation  of 
desire  for  personal  immortality — perhaps  I  ought  to 
have  said  a  comparative  cessation  of  desire.  I  have 
met  people  who  tell  me  that  they  have  no  wish  for  a 
life  of  personal  existence  beyond  the  grave.  There 
are  several  ways  in  which  they  could  come  to  such  a 
feeling  and  condition  as  that;  one  is  mental  ennui.  I 
think  that  the  sense  of  the  mystery  of  life  is  so  great, 
the  sense  of  illusion  so  appalling,  the  fruit  of  the 
noblest  effort  so  small,  that  some  of  the  best  of  men 
gradually  grow  tired,  and  cease  to  bother  about  what 
may  come,  and  just  wait  for  the  great  dissolution 
without  expectation  and  without  hope.  A  larger  num- 
ber are  represented  by  such  a  person  as  this.  I  heard 
a  City  man  speak  the  other  day,  and  I  took  a  mental 
note  of  his  case.  He  spoke  to  a  friend  in  these 
terms: 


PERSONAL    IMMORTALITY   159 

"  I  know  all  you  would  say  to  me.  I  went  to  Sunday- 
school  the  same  as  you  did ;  I  used  to  be  a  worker  in 
the  Church ;  I  had  my  notions,  as  you  have  them  now, 
about  man's  eternal  destiny.  I  have  come  to  the  con- 
clusion that  there  is  no  such  destiny,  and  that,  if  there 
were,  I  don't  seek  it ;  it  matters  nothing  to  me.  I  have 
worked  hard  all  my  life,  and  my  ideal  can  be  summed 
up  in  a  few  sentences.  It  is  this :  To  provide  a  com- 
petence for  my  five  children,  and  then  let  death  come 
as  soon  as  it  pleases.  I  ask  for  no  waiting  on  the 
other  side." 

I  Trouble  has  driven  many  people  to  that  condition. 
I  know  some  at  the  present  hour  who  would  be  glad 
to  feel  that  the  evening  had  come,  that  the  night  would 
soon  close  down,  and  all  their  worries  and  their  sor- 
rows be  hid  in  the  silence  of  the  grave. 

And  yet  with  all  this  there  is  such  an  interest  in  the 
subject  of  personal  immortality  that  I  question  whether 
many  others  can  compare  with  it  in  significance  and 
importance.  Men  for  the  most  part  do  want  to  live. 
Even  some  of  those  who  say  that  they  do  not,  if  they 
could  be  assured  that  the  best  is  true,  and  not  the 
worst,  would  very  soon  change  their  outlook  and  their 
hopes,  feelings,  and  desires. 


S^ 


"  Whatever  crazy  sorrow  saith, 
No  life  that  breathes  with  human  breath 
Has  ever  truly  longed  for  death. 
'Tis  life  whereof  our  nerves  are  scant, 
Oh,  life,  not  death,  for  which  we  pant, 
More  life  and  fuller  that  I  want." 


It  is  love  that  speaks  with  the  loudest  tongue  here. 
There  are  some  people  to  whom  life  has  ceased  to 
signify  much  since  the  dearest  went  away.     Most  of 


160     CITY    TEMPLE    SERMONS 

your  interests  now  are  upon  the  other  side;  you  feel 
that  the  cruellest  thing-  that  ever  came  into  your  ex- 
perience was  Death's  invasion  of  your  home,  and  if 
you  could  be  assured  that  you  will  see  your  dead  again, 
you  would  not  trouble  very  much  about  your  personal 
immortality — you  would  be  glad  to  think  that  love  can 
never  lose  its  own. 

It  is  for  this  reason  that  men  are  always  asking,  and 
will  continue  to  ask,  in  the  words  of  Job,  "  If  a  man 
;  die,  shall  he  live  again  ?  "  I  have  no  hesitation  about 
the  answer.  No,  he  will  not ;  for  the  simple  reason  ^  ^ 
that  he  will  never  die.  We  have  the  highest  authority "  ' 
for  saying  this.  Deathless  life  is  in  Jesus  Christ.// 
The  Master  of  the  universe,  who  holds  the  keys  of 
death  and  hell,  is  the  One  who  came  to  save  mankind. 
The  destiny  of  humanity  is  bound  up  with  the  life  of 
Jesus  Christ.  To  Him  do  you  belong,  not  to  yourself ; 
not  your  own  are  you,  but  bought  with  a  price.  Jesus 
Christ  has  rights  over  your  souls,  and  it  is  in  Him  that 
all  your  hope  is  centred,  not  only  for  yourself,  but  for 
your  dear  ones.  If  Christ  were  wrong  in  the  authority 
He  claimed  and  the  assurance  with  which  He  spoke, 
it  is  a  dismal  fact  for  humanity  to-day;  but  if  He 
were  right,  all  the  best  we  hope  for  and  expect  is  bound 
up  in  our  kinship  with  Jesus  Christ.  "  Because  I  live, 
ye  shall  live  also."  I  will  venture  upon  a  prophecy. 
It  is  that  the  next  great  rehabilitation  of  the  funda- 
mentals of  religion  will  come,  not  from  the  side  of 
theology,  but  from  the  side  of  science.  Theology,  any- 
way, is  no  more  than  speculation ;  it  always  stumbles 
along  in  the  wake  of  spiritual  experience.  Experience 
comes  first  and  theology  afterwards.  My  belief  is  that 
we  are  at  the  dawning  of  a  day  when  the  rehabilitation 


PERSONAL    IMMORTALITY    161 

of  the  great  facts  of  religion  will  come  from  the  side 
of  that  which  has  hitherto  been  hostile  to  it.  More- 
over, I  think  the  time  is  coming  when  our  knowledge 
will  be  unified  with  our  experience,  and  our  highest 
aspiration  will  find  justification  in  the  known  facts  of 
our  Hfe. 

There  are  certain  great  names  to-day  which  stand 
out  as  exponents  of  science,  and  which  are  associated, 
at  the  same  time,  with  a  not  unfriendly  interest  in 
religion.  Among  these  I  would  like  to  mention  Sir 
Oliver  Lodge,  Principal  of  the  University  of  Bir- 
mingham. This  great  man,  ex-President  of  the 
British  Association,  said  some  time  ago  that  to  him  the 
hypothesis  of  a  World  Soul  intimately  and  immediately 
concerned  with  ours  is  the  best  explanation  of  things 
as  they  are.  The  second  volume  of  a  work  by 
the  late  F.  W.  H.  Myers,  which  bears  the  signifi- 
cant title,  "  Human  Personality,  and  Its  Survival 
after  Bodily  Death,"  contains  these  two  passages.  The 
first  is : 

"  On  a  basis  of  observed  facts,  Christianity,  the 
youngest  of  the  great  types  of  religion,  does  assuredly 
rest.  Assuredly,  those  facts,  so  far  as  tradition  has 
made  them  known  to  us,  do  tend  to  prove  the  super- 
human character  of  its  Founder  and  His  triumph  over 
death,  and  thus  the  existence  and  influence  of  a 
spiritual  world  where  man's  true  citizenship  lies." 

The  second  passage  is  this : 

"  I  venture  now  on  a  bold  saying,  for  I  predict  that, 
in  consequence  of  the  new  evidencCj  all  reasonable  men 
a  century  hence  will  believe  the  resurrection  of  Christ ; 
whereas,  in  default  of  the  new  evidence,  no  reasonable 
man  a  century  hence  would  have  believed  it." 


102      CITY    TEMPLE    SERMONS 

The  second  part  of  that  statement  is  too  strong ;  the 
former  part  I  entirely  and  implicitly  believe. 

Again,  from  this  side  of  Christian  experience  and 
this  new  friendly  interest  of  science  in  human  nature 
from  the  religious  standpoint,  we  have  derived  certain 
.  great  ideas.  The  first  is  that  the  world  itself  is 
spiritual.  What  do  I  mean  by  that?  I  do  not  want 
to  use  a  vague  term  and  leave  it.  It  may  be  neither 
matter  nor  mind,  but  it  is  something  greater  than 
either,  and  which  has  immediate  significance  for  the 
highest  of  which  human  nature  has  shown  itself  to  be 
capable.  If  we  could  get  at  the  meaning  of  the  uni- 
verse, the  ultimate  meaning,  we  should  find  that  it  has 
an  immediate  bearing  upon  morality,  our  relations  to 
one  another,  and  to  the  Soul  of  all  things.  Now,  if 
all  is  spirit,  in  that  regard,  if  all  is  soul.  Sir  Oliver 
Lodge,  whose  soul  is  it  that  bears  such  an  immediate 
moral  relationship — a  relationship  which  we  cannot 
repudiate  and  with  which  we  cannot  dispense — whose 
is  it?  The  answer  of  Christian  experience  comes  to 
our  aid,  and  says,  Jesus  Christ  is  Lord  of  all,  the 
World-Soul,  comes  the  affirmation  from  a  quarter  in 
which  we  never  heard  it  before,  is  the  same  as  He 
I  who  spoke  on  the  hillsides  of  Galilee  and  in  the  upper 
I  room  at  Jerusalem.  "  Because  I  live,  ye  shall  live  also." 
^  The  second  great  idea  is  this — that  personality  is 
1  the  ultimate  reality  in  the  whole  scheme  of  things. 
You  were  prior  to  the  universe ;  you  are  a  universe 
yourself.  Every  soul  has  infinite  value — here  Jesus 
,  speaks  again — yours  is  worthy  of  an  eternal  destiny 
for  that  reason  alone.  I  could  quote  Dr.  Parker  in 
saying,  "  Man  is  a  soul,  and  he  has  a  body."  The 
body  is  but  the  language  of  the  soul.     "  Words,  like 


PERSONAL    IMMORTALITY    163 

nature,  half  reveal  and  half  conceal  the  soul  within." 
Moreover,  life  is  lived  in  limitation.  Here  I  will  utter 
a  sentence  I  will  not  attempt  to  prove  or  expound, 
which  has  little  to  do  with  my  immediate  subject.  I 
say  it  and  leave  it.  Some  men  are  better  than  their 
bodies  will  let  them  be.  Moreover,  life  has  value  in 
i  relation.  You  cannot  live  alone  the  best  life  or  the 
f  highest.  It  is  love  which  gives  significance  to  the 
I  living.  Take  that  to  the  very  highest  plane  that  hu- 
manity has  ever  known.  Love  of  God  has  produced 
a  somewhat  in  human  character  compared  with  which 
all  else  is  dim  and  sordid  and  ugly.  The  witness  of 
saintship  in  the  world  is  this — that  life,  to  be  life  at 
all,  should  be  lived  with  God.  It  is  not  eating  and 
drinking  and  sleeping;  it  is  righteousness  and  peace 
and  joy  in  the  Holy  Ghost.  This  is  life  eternal,  that  we 
might  know  Thee,  the  only  true  God,  and  Jesus  Christ 
whom  Thou  hast  sent. 

From  this  point  we  can  get  farther  and  eagerly  so. 
The  authority  of  Jesus  comes  to  our  aid.  He  has  not 
left  us  without  definite  witness.  Observe  how  little 
the  Christ  ever  said  about  the  life  to  come,  and  yet  how 
every  word  He  spoke  had  immediate  relation  to  it. 
"  In  my  Father's  house  are  many  mansions."  Suffer 
me  to  change  that  word,  time-honoured  as  it  is.  A 
mansion  means  a  big  thing  now;  it  did  not  mean  that 
when  King  James's  translators  first  put  it  down  here. 
A  mansion  is  a  remain-sion,  a  place  to  remain  in. 
"  In  My  Father's  home  are  many  resting-places.  If 
it  were  not  so,  I  would  have  told  you.  I  go  to  prepare 
a  place  for  you."    The  sweet  authority  of  Christ  comes 

I  to  our  aid  in  the  spiritual  witness  of  believers.     There 
is  one  type  of  man  who  never  doubts  personal  immor- 


164      CITY    TEMPLE    SERMONS 

/tality,  and  he  is  the  saint.     The  nearer  to  God  the 
surer  of  heaven. 

You  remember  the  story  of  the  old  Scottish  woman, 
who  was  asked  by  her  minister  to  test  her — so  great 
was  her  love  for  the  Master,  so  sure  was  she  of  His 
goodness — "  But,  Jenny,  woman,  suppose  at  the  last, 
after  all,  your  Lord  should  let  you  down  to  hell?" 
"Ah,  weel,"  she  said,  "be  it  as  it  pleases  Him:  He 
will  lose  mair  than  me."  Goodness  has  a  claim  upon 
God.  Goodness  is  an  apologetic  for  immortality. 
Produce  a  saint,  and  you  produce  something  far  more 
worthy  to  live  than  this  world  of  bricks  and  mortar, 
stones  and  lime,  sea  and  air.  Nay,  you  have  produced 
a  faith  that  it  cannot  be  otherwise,  and  that  it  shall 
live.  To  have  lived  with  God  is  the  promise  that  you 
will  live  for  aye.  "  Because  I  live,  ye  shall  live  also," 
.i|Life,  on  the  authority  of  Jesus,  is  one;  death  is  an  epi- 
Isode,  an  event  in  continuous  life.  Jesus,  the  Soul  of 
the  universe,  has  charge  of  yours.  When  Death 
comes,  he  is  but  a  messenger  to  call  personality  to  its 
own,  "  Beloved,  now  are  we  the  sons  of  God,  and  it 
doth  not  yet  appear  what  we  shall  be;  but  we  know 
that  when  He  " — or  it — "  shall  appear,  we  shall  be  like 
Him,  for  we  shall  see  Him  as  He  is." 
I  Moreover,  the  persistence  of  personality  means  the 
persistence  of  all  the  relations  that  make  life  glad  and 
Igood — the  persistence  of  memory,  thought,  feeling,  de- 
sire, affection.  Morality  is  pivoted  upon  personality. 
jMake  a  noble  man,  and  you  take  with  him  to  the  eter- 
pial  world  the  relations  that  have  helped  to  make  him 
noble.  Can  the  dead,  then,  forget?  No;  they  wait 
for  the  great  reunion;  "they  without  us  shall  not  be 
made  perfect."     "  Shall  we  see  our  dead  again?  "  say 


PERSONAL    IMMORTALITY    165 

some.  Yes,  you  will;  they  are  safe  in  the  arms  of 
Jesus;  in  the  unseen  you  will  meet  them  all.  And  I 
sometimes  long  to  think  the  black  sheep  will  be  there 
with  the  rest.  Moreover,  I  feel  that  the  cruellest 
stroke  of  fate  which  has  ever  come  to  any  man  in  this 
life,  in  the  removal  of  one  who  taught  him  to  be  noble,  J  ^  * 
might  be  God's  call  to  a  higher  citizenship  here  in  '^'^y^' 
preparation  for  the  citizenship  beyond.  There  may  be  '""(nf^lwA 
some  man  or  woman  here  who  feels  bitter  because 
death  has  robbed  him  or  her  of  all  that  gave  meaning 
to  life.  Do  not  feel  like  that  any  more;  set  your  affec- 
tions on  things  above.  If  you  only  knew,  you  would 
make  Christ  your  Trustee,  and  never  question  Him 
again.  You  little  know  what  your  dead  have  been  saved 
from  and  saved  to.  Your  little  child  who  has  gone  to 
heaven  is  wiser  than  you,  and  he  will  be  your  teacher 
by-and-bye.  I  wonder  what  the  minister  of  this 
church,  so  lately  called  home,  thinks  this  morning  of 
the  thoughts  he  used  to  think  and  the  things  he  used 
to  say  about  his  great  agony  when  it  came,  and  the 
promise  of  his  partner  to  wait  for  him  at  heaven's  gate. 
He  has  not  forgotten  us,  and  if  his  voice  could  sound 
from  the  tomb,  I  know  what  he  would  tell  us — that 
Jesus,  the  Conqueror  and  King,  is  the  pledge  and  the 
guarantee  of  all  spiritual  reunions  above.  Oh,  it  is 
worth  our  while  to  trust  Him,  to  leave  all  to  Him,  to 
live  as  in  His  presence,  to  make  Him  the  sacrament 
that  puts  us  in  touch  with  eternity.  He  is  the  golden 
bridge  over  the  gulf  of  death. 

"  Think,  when  our  one  soul  understands, 

The  great  Word  which  makes  all  things  new, 
When  earth  breaks  up  and  heaven  expands, 

How  will  the  change  strike  me  and  you 
In  the  house  not  made  with  hands  ? 


166     CITY    TEMPLE    SERMONS 

*•  Oh,  I  must  feel  your  brain  prompt  mine, 

Your  heart  anticipate  my  heart; 
You  must  be  just  before,  in  fine, 

See  and  make  me  see,  for  your  part, 
New  depths  of  the  Divine." 

Some  time  ago  I  read  a  little  book  on  this  subject, 
advocating  a  different  view  from  that  which  I  have 
placed  before  you.  One  beautiful  instance  was  given 
in  it  of  a  truth  that  all  our  hearts  will  affirm.  A  little 
girl  had  been  accustomed  always  to  bid  her  father 
good-night  in  the  same  words.  She  was  an  only  child, 
and  loved  as  only  children  are.  She  used  to  say, 
"  Good-night,  I  shall  see  you  again  in  the  morning." 
The  time  came  when  death's  bright  angel — bright  to 
those  who  go,  dark  to  those  who  stay — summoned 
her  to  heaven.  In  her  last  moments,  she  called  her 
father  to  her  side,  and  putting  up  her  little  arms,  she 
clasped  them  around  his  neck,  whispering  with  her 
rapidly  dying  strength,  "  Good-night,  dear  father,  I 
shall  see  you  again  in  the  morning."  She  was  right, 
as  the  child  always  is  right  about  the  highest  things. 
"Sorrow  endureth  for  a  night;  joy  cometh  in  the 
morning." 


XIV 
THE  DOCTRINE  OF  DIVINE  LOVE* 

The  Father  Himself  loveih yoii.— John  xvi.  22. 

THE  doctrine  of  Divine  love,  w^e  are  sometimes 
assured,  has  been  preached  ad  nauseam  by 
preachers  in  every  evangelical  pulpit — in  fact, 
I  should  suppose  in  most  Christian  pulpits  in  this  land. 
We  are  sometimes  told  that  the  doctrine  has  been  over- 
done. Perhaps  it  has.  If  it  has  been  preached  un- 
convincingly,  no  doubt  that  is  the  fault  of  the  proph- 
ets who  have  had  it  in  trust,  and  that  occasionally 
preachers  themselves  transcend  or  overleap  their  own 
experience  in  their  declaration  of  a  doctrine  which,  if 
it  be  true,  ought  to  have  a  greater  effect  upon  their 
lives,  upon  the  power  of  their  ministry,  upon  the  qual- 
ity of  Christian  character.  All  this  may  be  true,  and 
yet  the  doctrine  of  Divine  love  is  of  the  very  essence 
of  Christianity;  it  is  that  which  explicitly  or  implicitly 
should  underlie  every  utterance  made  in  the  name  of 
Christ.  Most  fittingly,  therefore,  do  we  on  His  au- 
thority go  back  to  it  this  morning.  It  may  be  that  we 
can  frankly  confess  to  each  other  that  the  Apostle  of 
Love,  from  whose  writings  we  have  taken  our  text, 
may  not  always  have  retained  the  ipsissima  verba  of  the 
Master  when  he  has  been  writing  about  Him.  In  this 
fourth  gospel  I  believe  myself  there  are  places  in  which 
*  Preached  in  Union  Chapel,  Brighton,  Sunday  morning, 
March  8,  1903. 

167 


168      CITY    TEMPLE    SERMONS 

the  Apostle  has  expanded,  perhaps  even  edited,  the 
words  of  the  Master.  In  so  doing  he  has  not  made 
them  false,  and  it  matters  very  little  in  the  cases  where 
this  has  happened  that  we  may  not  have  exactly  the 
sentence,  word  for  word,  which  came  from  the  lips  of 
Jesus.  Nay,  in  some  places  it  is  difficult  to  know 
whether  St.  John  means  that  he  himself  is  speaking  or 
his  Master;  he  does  not  tell  us  where  the  one  leaves  off 
and  the  other  begins.  But  I  never  can  bring  myself 
to  believe  that  this  is  true  of  the  last  few  chapters,  and 
especially  from  the  thirteenth  to  the  eighteenth  in  this 
beautiful  gospel.  Most  of  us  could  repeat  the  four- 
teenth of  St.  John  without  any  book  at  all.  It  is  the 
classic  of  Christian  experience,  and  another  like  unto 
it  is  the  sixteenth  chapter,  whence  our  text  is  taken. 
It  matters  not  how  John  came  to  remember  these 
words  which  in  a  time  of  great  spiritual  strain  and 
intensity  were  given  to  him  to  repeat  to  us.  But  this 
is  certain:  the  spiritual  man  declares — cannot  but  de- 
clare— that  these  are  the  words  of  the  Master,  the 
words  of  eternal  life.  It  is  on  the  authority  of  the  Mas- 
ter, then,  with  His  very  sentence  ringing  in  our  ears, 
that  we  turn  this  morning  to  that  fundamental  of  the 
Christian  faith — God  is  love. 

It  is  fitting  to  remember,  I  say,  on  the  authority  of 
the  Master,  that  this  is  so,  for  without  the  Master  we 
could  not  affirm  it  at  all.  Sometimes  we  are  told  that 
without  Christ  it  were  still  possible  for  the  human  heart 
to  affirm  that  love  reigns  at  the  heart  of  things.  I 
know  not  how  that  discovery  is  made.  The  Christ  is 
the  source  of  all  that  we  bring  to  experience  when  we 
affirm  that  love  is  the  name  and  the  nature  of  God. 
We   cannot   read   it   in  the   external   world.     Henry 


DOCTRINE    OF   DIVINE   LOVE    169 

Drummond  thinks  we  can;  but  I  believe  that  Henry 
Drummond  does  what  the  spiritual  man  always  does 
when  he  looks  for  the  kindness  of  God  in  the  world 
without — he  brings  something  to  nature  before  he 
reads  out  of  nature  the  goodness  of  the  All-Father. 

*'  That  type  of  perfect  in  his  mind 
In  nature  can  he  nowhere  find; 
He  sows  himself  on  every  wind." 

It  is  only  when,  as  Dr.  Dallinger,  the  great  Wesleyan 

divine  and  man  of  science,  says,  we  acknowledge  that  no 
man  has  seen  nor  can  see  God,  not  even  His  footsteps 
in  nature  as  the  God  of  love,  and  recognise  that  the 
only  begotten  Son  hath  declared  Him,  that  we  continue : 

"  He  seems  to  hear  a  heavenly  friend, 
And  through  thick  veils  to  apprehend 
A  labour  working  to  an  end." 

Do  not,  I  pray  you,  mistake  my  meaning.  It  were 
a  sad  thing  for  us  if,  by  a  kind  of  illogical  dichotomy, 
we  could  believe  in  a  God  of  love  in  direct  contrast  to 
the  witness  of  nature.  No,  the  truth  is  that  the  key 
to  the  interpretation  of  nature  is  to  be  found  in  the 
Gospel,  You  can  call  nature  the  garment  of  God, 
woven  without  seams  throughout,  when  you  realise 
that  the  highest  is  the  interpretation  of  the  whole,  and 
that  in  Christ  we  have  the  great  secret  of  the  cosmos — 
God  is  love. 

On  the  field  of  history  we  are  not  much  better  ofif. 
It  is  a  saddening  study  to  the  man  who  goes  into  it 
without  faith;  yea,  verily,  it  is  little  more  than  the  rec- 
ords of  the  crimes  and  the  faults  of  poor,  errant 
human  nature,  as  has  often  been  pointed  out.  W^e 
need  a  co-ordinating  principle  somewhere,  and  I  be- 
lieve that  no  man  has  ever  yet  accomplished  in  the  field 


no      CITY    TEMPLE    SERMONS 

of  history  aught  worthy  of  the  name  who  has  not 
found,  consciously  or  sub-consciously,  that  co-ordinat- 
ing principle  in  a  rule  of  right  which  somehow  makes 
itself  felt,  and  works  itself  out,  and  which  is  only  an- 
other name  for  God.  Can  there  be  a  right  which  does 
not  issue  in  love?  Our  moral  consciousness  denies  it. 
The  God  of  right  and  the  God  of  love  must  be  one  and 
the  same,  and  to  preach  the  right  without  the  love,  or 
the  love  without  the  right,  is  to  shear  your  Gospel  of 
all  convincingness  and  power.  Sometimes  we  preach 
a  God  whose  nature,  though  we  do  not  say  so,  is  that 
of  a  doting  amiability;  and  sometimes  we  are  inclined 
to  preach  a  God,  though  we  do  not  say  so,  who  is  a 
God  of  rigid  implacability.  Neither  is  true;  both  con- 
tain a  truth.  The  God  of  righteousness  who  is  de- 
clared in  history — and  you  cannot  mistake  Him — 
must  also  be  the  God  of  love,  if  we  are  to  believe  in  a 
future  for  man — a  glorious  destiny  for  those  who  re- 
main in  the  image  of  God.  On  the  field  of  history  we 
can  read  a  plan  Divine  best  of  all  when  we  look 
through  the  eyes  of  Jesus  Christ.  In  our  every-day 
experience,  what  else  can  we  say?  Can  we  take  any 
other  Guide  and  Master  than  Jesus  Christ?  I  trow 
not.  If  I  were  a  man  of  the  world,  pure  and  simple — 
and  sometimes  I  think  I  am  not  much  else — I  mean 
that  I  would  rather  look  out  with  the  eyes  of  the  man 
who  has  to  fight  the  battle  of  life  than  I  would  play 
the  ecclesiastic.  If  I  were  a  man  of  the  world,  pure 
and  simple,  I  would  do  what  so  many  thousands  of 
their  company  even  external  to  the  Churches  are  doing 
to-day,  and  without  relation  to  preachers — I  would 
examine  the  claims  of  Jesus  Christ,  and  see  if  there 
were  no  hope  and  guidance  for  me  there. 


DOCTRINE    OF   DIVINE    LOVE  Hi 

Mr.  Moody  once  said,  in  his  preaching,  and  in  my 
hearing,  that  when  he  first  began  his  wonderful  work, 
not  in  England,  but  in  America,  he  was  inclined  to 
make  some  distinction  between  the  nature  of  the 
Father  and  the  nature  of  the  Son.  I  mean  their  moral 
nature — put  metaphysics  away.  He  had  never  for- 
mulated it  to  himself;  we  do  not  always  formulate  our 
creeds.  But  after  feeling  the  sternness  of  the  Father, 
as  over  against  and  contrasted  with  the  winsomeness 
of  the  Son,  he  said  it  came  to  him  like  a  new  gospel 
that  the  Son  reveals  the  heart  of  the  universe,  and  that 
kindness  is  the  solution  of  the  mystery  there,  "  He 
that  hath  seen  Me  hath  seen  the  Father  "  is  a  moral 
proposition  rather  than  an  intellectual.  It  should  be- 
come part  of  the  immediate  spiritual  experience  of 
every  man.  When  you  have  seen  the  heart  of  Jesus 
you  have  no  more  to  learn  about  the  heart  of  God: 
it  will  be  the  same  as  His  to  all  eternity.  On  the  wit- 
ness of  the  Master,  whose  life — yea,  even  rather  his 
teaching — is  the  declaration  of  this  evangel,  we  would 

say: 

"  God  is  love  :  His  mercy  brightens 
All  the  path  by  which  we  rove." 

If  we  can  establish  that  declaration — and  it  is  not  the 
easiest  thing  in  the  world  to  do  it — we  can  build  an 
experience  of  optimism  upon  it,  and  say,  with  Saba- 
tier:  "When  wearied  by  the  world  of  pleasure  or  of 
toil  I  long  to  find  my  soul  again  and  live  a  deeper  life, 
I  can  accept  no  other  God  and  Master  than  Jesus 
Christ,  because  in  Him  alone  optimism  is  without 
frivolity  and  seriousness  without  despair."  The  doc- 
trine of  Divine  love  is  one  declared  to  spiritual  experi- 
ence.    I  sometimes  wonder  when,  with  our  modern 


1^2      CITY    TEMPLE    SERMONS 

methods,  we  shall  take  the  spiritual  man  seriously,  and 
examine  him,  and  endeavour  to  understand  the  reason 
for  his  life.  We  go  with  hammer  and  chisel  and 
microscope  to  examine  rocks  and  fossils;  why  not  ask 
ourselves  the  question  which,  in  point  of  fact,  some  are 
beginning  to  ask,  Why  is  a  man  good,  and  loving,  and 
confident  that  goodness  and  love  are  making  him? 
Why  is  it?  The  experience  of  the  spiritual  man  is  the 
best  apologetic  for  the  Gospel — far  more  so  than  the 
words  of  preachers,  be  they  never  so  eloquent ;  and  the 
doctrine  of  Divine  love,  though  it  seem  to  be  in  plain 
contrast  with  the  facts  of  life,  is  witnessed,  without 
faltering  and  without  fail,  in  the  experience  of  the 
spiritual  roan.  He  tells  us  that  the  love  of  God  is  no 
thing  of  weak  amiability:  it  is  a  very  stern  thing,  that 
it  is  discriminating  in  its  incidence,  that  it  will  not 
spare  its  object,  that  it  is  the  explanation  of  sorrow 
and  struggle  and  pain,  and  that  it  is  the  end  toward 
which  these  things  point,  and  the  triumph  in  which 
finally  these  things  shall  be  destroyed.  God  hath  not 
left  Himself  without  a  witness ;  and  the  spiritual  man, 
living  the  life  of  the  Cross,  never  fiinches  from  the 
declaration  that,  in  spite  of  the  seeming,  "  Behind  a 
frowning  Providence,"  there  is  a  smiling  face. 

Long  ago  I  remember  a  lady  in  this  church  telling 
me  of  her  experience  of  one,  a  woman,  very  poor,  even 
ignorant,  who  had  had  a  hard,  strenuous  life,  and  who 
finally  was  dying  without  the  hope  of  doing  anything 
for  her  children,  who  made  a  somewhat  remarkable 
declaration  on  her  deathbed  to  her  visitor.  The  visitor 
was  trying  to  convince  her,  as  I  am  trying  to  convince 
you,  of  the  testimony  of  the  spiritual  man,  that  God  is 
love.     The  poor  woman  answered  by  saying,  "  I  can 


DOCTRINE    OF   DIVINE   LOVE   n3 

believe  all  you  declare  about  Jesus  Christ,  but  I  don't 
believe  in  God."  You  would  scarcely  think  it  possible 
that  the  declaration  could  have  been  made,  but,  you 
see,  it  was  made  by  one  who  was  not  accustomed  to 
think.  She  continued:  "  If  Christ  were  here,  the  real 
Christ  of  whom  you  speak,  I  could  tell  Him  all  my 
troubles;  but  I  cannot  tell  them  to  God."  The  de- 
mand of  that  rudimentary  experience  surely  was  for 
a  gospel  in  which  Christ  should  be  the  pledge  and 
guarantee  of  the  goodwill  of  God.  There  are  many 
thousands  who  feel  something  like  it  who  may  not, 
cannot,  explain  why.  Christ  becomes  their  gateway 
into  God:  and  it  is  not  too  much  to  say  that  there  are 
more  men  and  women  believing  in  the  goodness  of 
God  to-day — yea,  in  the  very  existence  of  God — be- 
cause there  is  a  Christ  to  preach,  than  through  all 
other  means  put  together.  The  experience  of  the 
spiritual  man  will  bear  the  test  of  examination 
here.  There  may  be  one  man  here  in  utter 
despair  about  his  life:  he  has  lived  so  badly.  There 
in  another  man  close  by  him  who  would  affirm  that, 
though  the  whole  world  go  crashing  into  ruin,  still  it 
is  well,  for  "  He  plants  His  footsteps  in  the  sea,  and 
rides  upon  the  storm  " — He  by  whom  the  very  hairs 
of  our  head  are  all  numbered.  Man  is  a  citizen  of 
eternity,  and  the  love  of  God  is  broader  than  the  meas- 
ure of  man's  mind. 

"  Thou  judgest  us  :  Thy  purity 
Doth  all  our  lusts  condemn  ; 
The  love  that  draws  us  nearer  Thee 
Is  hot  with  wrath  to  them." 

Some  of  you,  in  speaking  about  the  love  of  God,  forget 
that  the  love  of  God  means  the  wrath  of  God.     They 


174      CITY    TEMPLE    SERMONS 

never  can  be  separated  in  spiritual  experience.  We 
have  read  of  the  soldier-father  who  destroyed  his  boy 
at  the  front  rather  than  permit  him  to  play  the  cow- 
ard's part  and  disgrace  an  ancient  name,  and  I  have 
heard  a  humbler  father  say,  in  anguish  of  spirit, 
"  Would  that  God  had  taken  my  boy  years  and  years 
ago  than  let  me  live  to  see  the  man  he  has  become !  " 

Love  has  an  ultimatum.  There  is  a  point  where  love 
is  your  enemy,  and  will  destroy  you  rather  than  fail  of 
its  object:  it  can  be  satisfied  with  nothing  less  than  the 
highest.  For  love  is  noble,  and  God  is  nobleness,  be- 
cause God  is  love.  On  the  other  hand,  love  will  never 
spare  the  loved,  because  it  is  calling  to  higher  heights 
day  by  day.  Your  increase  of  knowledge  of  the  work- 
ings of  God,  of  His  ways  with  men,  must  lead  you 
to  know  that  you  will  not  be  placed  always  in  the 
green  pastures  and  led  beside  the  still  waters.  God 
has  something  grander  than  this  for  the  children  of 
men:  We  have  read  of  that  ever-great  commander 
who,  when  asking  for  someone  to  lead  a  forlorn  hope, 
received  with  gladness  the  offer  of  his  boy  to  do  it. 
The  old  warrior's  eyes  lighted  with  love,  and  with 
pride  he  looked  at  him;  he  handed  him  the  standard, 
and  said,  "There  is  your  task,  yonder  the  enemy;  go 
forward."  Was  it  love  that  spake,  or  was  it  indiffer- 
ence? Was  it  the  love  that  would  have  placed  its  arms 
around  him  and  shielded  him  from  all  harm  and  from 
all  danger,  love  that  would  have  cherished  the  feminine 
— which  sometimes,  after  all,  is  the  strongest — at  the 
expense  of  the  grandest  in  that  boyish  nature?  No;  in 
that  warrior  I  read  my  God,  who  spared  not  His  own 
Son,  but  delivered  Him  up  for  us  all,  and  as  He  is  so 
are  we  in  this  world. 


DOCTRINE    OF   DIVINE   LOVE  1^5 

Again,  I  would  have  you  believe  and  know,  when 
you  speak  of  the  love  of  God  as  the  interpretation  of 
things  as  they  are,  that  it  is  so  discriminating  in  its 
incidence  that  it  will  not  deal  with  any  two  men  alike. 
I  sometimes  wonder  why  this  man  has  so  much  to 
bear  and  that  man  goes  scot  free.  If  the  love  of  God 
were  not  discriminating  you  would  both  have  cause  to 
mourn.  Sometimes  we  preachers  deal  with  a  glorious 
truth  so  unconvincingly  that  we  begin  to  feel  that  it 
does  not  matter  whether  we  preach  the  love  of  God  or 
not,  we  are  all  alike  sunned  in  the  atmosphere  of  the 
Divine  indifferentism.  He  maketh  His  sun  to  rise  on 
the  evil  and  on  the  good,  but  He  knows  which  are  evil 
and  which  are  good.  It  is  not  as  when  the  sun  some- 
times shineth  in  your  window,  and  the  birds  sing  in  the 
garden,  when  you  have  death  in  the  home;  the  glory 
without  seems  a  mockery  as  you  think  of  the  sorrow 
within.  No;  there  is  something  greater  than  indififer- 
entism  here.  That  man  is  chosen  to  be  trained  and 
sent  at  the  bidding  of  love — love  that  knows  itself  as 
love,  love  that  is  felt  as  love;  and  yonder  man  is  sent, 
like  the  warrior  in  the  darkness,  against  principalities 
and  powers — sent  to  do  and  to  bear  for  the  sake  of  the 
highest.  What  shall  his  reward  be  in  the  great  day  of 
revelation? 

I  will  go  farther,  and  say  I  do  not  think  the  warrior 
always  knows  who  has  sent  him  to  the  fight.  Sometimes 
when  I  see  a  poor  man  afflicted  in  his  body,  without 
opportunity,  social  influence,  or  consideration,  and 
suffering  every  moment  of  his  life,  passing  me  on  the 
streets,  I  ask  myself  the  question.  What  is  that  man 
bearing  for  me?  Vicarious  suflfering  is  Divine  service. 
We  read  that  at  the  Cross.     It  may  be  some  mitigation 


176      CITY    TEMPLE    SERMONS 

of  the  terribleness  of  the  problem  of  human  agony  when 
you  think  that  some  of  the  unconscious  sufferers  of 
the  world — I  mean  those  who  do  not  realise  that 
the  suffering  is  Divinely  given — are  serving  against 
the  great  day  when  the  secrets  of  all  hearts,  the  ex- 
planation of  all  destinies,  shall  become  known. 

"  Yea,  sometimes  when  I  feel  my  heart 

Most  weak  and  life  most  burdensome, 
I  lift  mine  eyes  up  to  the  hills 

From  whence  my  help  shall  come  ; 
Yea,  sometimes  still  I  lift  my  heart 

To  th'  archangelic  trumpet-burst, 
When  all  deep  secrets  shall  be  shown. 

And  many  last  be  first." 

If  we  only  believed  this,  and  realised  the  sublimity 
of  the  doctrine  which  has  sometimes  been  held  to  be  so 
weak,  that  God  is  love,  it  would  waken  all  the  man- 
hood in  you,  and  call  out  the  best;  you  would  never 
shrink  from  the  hardest,  nO'  matter  what  it  involved, 
and  your  faith  would  never  fail.  Did  you  ever  think 
of  the  heroism  of  the  Christ?  I  love  to  dwell  upon  it. 
There  was  a  Hero  crucified,  and  He  is  my  God.  Shall 
we  stand  in  that  fellowship  in  the  shadow  of  Calvary, 
or  shall  we  fail  Him?  See  what  it  has  made.  Even 
saving  faith  is  the  gift  of  God,  the  gift  of  His  love, 
and  to  be  prayed  for;  but  when  it  comes  it  makes 
heroes — Christ's  men,  with  the  marks  of  the  Lord 
Jesus. 

Renan,  that  great  scholar,  and  critic,  and  man,  who 
spoke  for  an  age  and  a  people  rich  in  admiration  of  the 
Christ,  and  stopped  just  short  of  the  truth  that  I  have 
now  declared,  this  is  what  he  says  of  the  great  Apostle 


DOCTRINE    OP   DIVINE    LOVE   lV7 

of  the  Gentiles  in  his  book  on  St.  Paul :  "  Convinced 
that  he  had  given  his  life  for  a  dream,  Paul  may  have 
wandered,  despairing  and  resigned,  on  some  Iberian 
shore,  aware  of  the  nothingness  of  life,  aware  that  he 
was  wrong  about  the  Christ,  and  that  the  future  was 
dark."  Hear  what  Paul  says  about  himself;  it  was  not 
just  that :  "  Nothing  in  heaven  or  earth  shall  separate 
us  from  the  love  of  God,  which  is  in  Christ  Jesus  our 
Lord."  That  is  the  testimony  of  a  man  who  died  for 
the  faith,  and  who  died  many  times  before  the  sword 
of  Nero  fell.  If  we  only  believed  it.  Dr.  Martineau 
has  said,  it  would  be  a  comfort  rather  than  a  dread  to 
think  that  the  issues  of  our  life  are  hid  in  God,  that 
there  is  only  a  very  little  we  can  do  in  the  fashioning 
of  our  own  destiny.  Should  we  not  simply  wait,  wait 
in  peace  and  fortitude,  the  Divine  command?  Back 
to  the  old  authority,  our  Hero-God:  "  He  that  hath 
My  commandments,  and  keepeth  them,  he  it  is  that 
loveth  Me,  and  he  that  loveth  Me  shall  be  loved  of 
My  Father,  and  I  will  love  him,  and  will  manifest  My- 
self to  him.  He  that  loveth  Me  not  keepeth  not  My 
sayings,  and  the  word  which  ye  hear  is  not  Mine,  but 
the  Father's  which  sent  Me." 


XV 
PRAYING  IN  CHRIST  JESUS 

If  ye  abide  in  Me,  and  My  words  abide  in  you,  ye  shall 
ask  what  ye  will,  and  it  shall  be  done  unto  you. — John  xv.  7. 

THE  subject  of  prayer  is  one  of  never-failing 
interest  to  mankind,  and  one  upon  which  con- 
troversy shows  no  signs  of  coming  to  an  end. 
We  might  have  thought  that  all  that  can  be  said  upon 
this  great  theme  has  been  said  long  ago,  and  that  there 
was  no  more  either  to  say  or  to  argue  concerning  it. 
Such  is  very  far  from  being  the  case.  I  am  perfectly 
sure  that  in  a  congregation  so  comprehensive  as  this 
one,  for  example,  we  have  the  most  various  types  of 
mind  and  attitudes,  too,  upon  the  subject  of  prayer. 
I  have  brought  with  me  into  the  pulpit  a  book  in  which 
certain  of  these  types  are  set  forth  for  a  purpose  rather 
different  from  mine,  and  I  venture  to  suppose  that 
every  type  herein  suggested  is  present  in  this  church. 
I  intend  to  speak  about  these.  The  first  of  these  is 
illustrated  in  the  work  before  me,  which  I  may  remark, 
parenthetically,  is  a  work  on  psychology,  not  on  re- 
ligion. The  books  that  are  most  valuable  to  me,  from 
a  religious  point  of  view,  are  nearly  always  those  which 
treat  religious  questions  from  some  other  standpoint 
than  the  religious  one.  The  eminent  psychologist 
who  has  collected  the  particulars  before  me  put  ques- 
tions to  a  number  of  individuals  at  random.     Here  are 

178 


PRAYING   IN    CHRIST   JESUS  179 

some  of  the  questions  he  put  to  one  man  and  the 
answers  he  got: 

Q. — What  does  reHgion  mean  to  you? 

A. — It  means  nothing,  and  it  seems,  so  far  as  I  can 
observe,  useless  to  others.  I  am  sixty-seven  years  of 
age,  and  have  resided  in  the  same  place  sixty  years, 
and  have  been  in  business  for  forty-five;  consequently 
I  have  some  little  experience  of  life  and  men,  and  some 
of  women,  too ;  and  I  find  that  the  most  religious  and 
pious  people  are,  as  a  rule,  those  most  lacking  in  up- 
rightness and  morality.  The  men  who  do  not  go  to 
church,  or  have  any  religious  convictions,  are  the  best. 
Praying,  singing  of  hymns,  and  sermonising  are  per- 
nicious— they  teach  us  to  rely  on  some  supernatural 
power,  when  we  ought  to  rely  on  ourselves.  I  tee- 
totally  disbelieve  in  a  God.  .  .  .  If  I  were  to  die  now, 
being  in  a  healthy  condition  for  my  age,  both  mentally 
and  physically,  I  would  just  as  lief — yes,  rather — die 
with  a  hearty  enjoyment  of  music,  sport,  or  any  other 
rational  pastime.  As  the  timepiece  stops,  we  die,  and 
that  is  all  about  it. 

Q. — What  is  your  notion  -of  sin? 

A. — It  seems  to  me  that  sin  is  a  condition,  a  dis- 
ease, incidental  to  man's  development  not  being  yet 
advanced  enough.  Morbidness  over  it  increases 
the  disease,  and,  at  any  rate,  it  is  no  use  praying 
about  it. 

The  writer  of  the  book  drily  remarks  at  the  close 
of  the  interrogation,  "  If  we  are  in  search  of  a  broken 
and  contrite  heart,  clearly  we  need  not  look  to  this 
brother." 

Now  compare  that  statement  of  experience  with  this 
one.     In  answer  to  similar  questions,  another  man, 


180      CITY    TEMPLE    SERMONS 

forty-nine  years  of  age,  chosen  at  random,   like  the 
other,  answers: 

"  God  is  more  real  to  me  than  any  thought  or  thing 
or  person.  I  feel  His  presence  positively.  Tlie  more  I 
Hve  in  closer  harmony  with  His  laws  as  written  in 
body  and  mind,  the  nearer  do  I  feel  Him  to  be.  I  talk- 
to  Him  as  to  a  companion  in  prayer  and  praise,  and 
our  communion  is  joy." 

Another,  this  time  a  young  man  of  twenty-seven,  re- 
plies: 

"  God  is  quite  real  to  me.  I  speak  to  Him,  and  He 
answers  me.  Something  over  a  year  ago,  I  was  for 
some  weeks  in  the  direst  perplexity.  I  turned  to  God's 
Holy  Word,  and  the  promise,  *  My  grace  is  suflficient 
for  thee,'  seems  to  come  afresh  from  God's  heart  to 
mine.  Every  time  my  thoughts  turned  to  my  trouble, 
I  heard  that  ring,  and  I  knew  that  heaven  spoke  to  me. 
God  is  the  nearest  of  all  realities  to  my  soul.  He  sur- 
rounds me  like  an  atmosphere.  He  is  precious.  He  is 
necessary,  more  to  me  than  my  own  life." 

Now,  I  suppose  we  could  parallel  those  two  cases  in 
this  audience.  I  am  perfectly  sure  that  a  number  of 
you  have  come  in  here,  not  because  you  believe  in 
religion  or  the  Bible,  still  less  in  any  preacher,  but 
somebody  said  to  you,  "  We  have  an  hour  to  spare, 
shall  we  go  along  to  the  City  Temple  and  see  what 
these  people  are  doing,  and  what  the  fellow  who  is 
there  has  to  say?  "  But  you  have  no  more  touch  with 
us  and  no  more  spiritual  susceptibility,  or  you  think 
not,  than  the  organ  behind  or  the  walls  around  me. 
You  can  get  on  perfectly  well  without  any  religion. 
You  never  pray,  and  tell  me  you  never  want  to,  and 
you  would  feel  it  rather  unmanly  not  to  fight  your  own 


PRAYING    IN    CHRIST   JESUS   181 

battles,  and  you  think  what  puling  weaklings  these 
people  are  who  go  whining  to  a  Higher  Power  when 
they  want  things  done  for  them,  and  so  on.  Now,  my 
friend,  over  against  your  case  I  place  in  respectful 
i:ontrast  the  experience  suggested  in  the  words  just 
read  as  coming  from  the  religious  mind.  Not  all  of  the 
people  who  pray  are  weaker  men  than  you;  some  of 
them  are  tremendously  strong,  and,  to  say  the  least 
of  it,  you  had  better  judge  of  Christianity  in  particular 
and  of  religion  in  general  by  the  best  and  the  strongest 
it  produces  rather  than  by  the  weak.  If  you  do,  you 
will  find  some  things  between  you  and  me  that  ought 
to  make  you  pause  and  think  whether  you  have  got 
hold  of  the  right  philosophy  of  life. 

Partly  between  these  two  strong  contrastive  types 
of  mind  there  is  another  great  body  of  experience  rep- 
resented, for  anything  I  know  to  the  contrary,  by  a 
majority,  a  distinct  numerical  majority,  of  those  who 
are  present  this  morning.  A  man  of  this  third  type 
sometimes  prays  and  sometimes  does  not;  occa- 
sionally he  feels  an  impulse  to  cry  to  his  Maker. 
Perhaps  an  overmastering  sorrow  drives  him  to 
his  knees,  but,  for  the  most  part,  prayer  has  very 
little  to  do  with  his  ordinary  everyday  experience;  yet 
he  would  be  glad  to  know  that  there  was  any  reality 
in  prayer.  You  will  perhaps  tell  me  that  you  have 
prayed  many  a  time,  and  you  are  not  conscious  that  you 
have  got  any  answer;  but  if  there  be  such  a  thing  as 
answered  prayer  you  would  like  to  know  of  it,  that  you 
may  get  fast  hold  upon  the  things  that  are  unseen  and 
eternal.  I  cannot  do  better  than  ask  you  to  come  with 
me  as  close  up  as  ever  you  can  get  to  the  words  of  my 
text;  for  if  ever  there  was  an  unequivocal  statement 


182      CITY    TEMPLE    SERMONS 

of  the  experience  of  prayer  and  a  promise  of  answer  to 
it,  it  is  in  that  text,  "  If  ye  abide  in  Me,  and  My  words 
abide  in  you,  ye  shall  ask  what  ye  will,  and  it  shall  be 
done  unto  you."  Those  words  must  answer  to  some- 
body's experience,  for  we  have  the  temerity  to  read 
them  in  the  pulpit  nearly  nineteen  hundred  years  after 
they  were  written.  "  Ah,"  somebody  will  say,  "  you 
beg  the  question,  they  were  not  written  so  far  back; 
you  stick  St.  John's  name  on,  but  did  John  ever  write 
them,  and  did  Jesus  ever  say  them?"  I  think  John 
did  write  them,  and  that  Jesus  did  say  them,  and  the 
reason  why  I  think  so  is  that  they  have  stood  the  test 
of  so  many  centuries,  whether  it  be  sixteen  or  nineteen. 
They  are  here,  and  they  have  value-.  Men  heed  them, 
pray  because  of  them,  cling  to  them,  rest  upon  them. 
They  regard  them  as  a  gracious  promise,  they  build 
them  into  heart  and  life,  and  your  preacher  of  this 
morning,  not  to  speak  of  scores  of  other  people  who 
would  say  the  same  thing,  believes  them  to  be 
deathlessly  true.  The  Master  who  spoke  them  is 
speaking  them  still,  and  He  speaks  them  in  the  midst 
of  our  congregation  to-day.  "  If  ye  abide  in  Me,  and 
My  words  abide  in  you  " — no  stranger  voice  this — 
"  ye  shall  ask  what  ye  will,  and  it  shall  be  done  unto 
you."  Let  us  further  examine  into  the  scope  of  this 
stupendous  promise. 

"  If  ye  abide  in  Me,"  "  Now,"  says  my  friend  the 
sceptic,  willing  or  unwilling,  "  I  may  try  this  exercise 
of  yours,  but  to  me  praying  is  just  like  talking  at  the 
air;  the  words  go,  but  they  do  not  bring  anything 
back.  I  may  act  on  the  eternal,  but  there  is  no  re- 
action. It  is  like  uttering  oneself  to  an  atmosphere." 
Take    your    phrase — "  an    atmosphere."     You    have 


PRAYING   IN    CHRIST   JESUS   183 

prayed  to-day  to  an  atmosphere,  and  you  got  an  an- 
swer. All  your  human  relations  are  questions  of  at- 
mosphere. You  never  yet  had  anything  to  do  with  a 
person  but  you  were  dealing  with  an  atmosphere, 
one  that  you  could  feel  and  describe,  and  has  value. 
You  know  it  because  it  reacts  on  your  experience. 
Every  man  has  his  atmosphere,  and  when  you  were 
trying  to  sell  a  man  a  dozen  yards  of  calico  across  the 
counter,  and  asked  him  a  certain  price  for  it,  and  did 
your  best  to  get  him  to  pay  it,  you  were  praying;  it 
may  have  been  on  a  low  level,  but  you  were  praying  to 
a  living  person,  whose  atmosphere  was  round  about 
you,  distinct  from  any  atmosphere  you  ever  knew 
before,  and  that  man's  value  for  you  at  this  moment, 
whatever  it  may  be,  was  an  exact  equivalent  to  your 
prayer.  Do  you  think  this  is  a  far-fetched  illustration? 
It  is  not;  nothing  of  the  sort.  All  religion  is  a  ques- 
tion of  personal  atmosphere.  We  live  with  a  living 
Being.  Christianity  is  no  code  of  rules  or  system  of 
philosophy;  it  is  a  spirit,  a  life,  an  atmosphere,  and  we 
are  dealing  with  a  Person  who  is,  at  any  rate,  not  less 
than  any  person  you  ever  met  in  this  life.  Now  if  I 
declare  the  Person  with  whom  I  am  dealing  across  my 
spiritual  counter  to  be  Jesus  Christ,  you  cannot  con- 
tradict me,  if  experience  goes  to  confirm  my  faith. 
Has  He  kept  His  word?  Has  He  done  aught  for  me? 
My  prayer  has  come  back  laden  with  something  worth 
the  having,  and  I  send  it  forth  again  in  faith  that  the 
return  will  increase.  "  If  a  man  abide  in  Me  and  I 
abide  in  him,  the  same  bringeth  forth  much  fruit." 

I  have  a  rather  curious  case  of  conversion  to  tell  you 
about  this  morning  which  I  only  got  to  hear  of  myself 
ten  days  ago.     It,  I  think,  makes  the  point  rather 


184      CITY    TEMPLE    SERMONS 

clearer  than  I  can  make  it  by  simply  talking  round  it. 
A  young  man  tells  me  that  his  experience  of  Christ  be- 
gan in  this  wise:  He  had  been  what  we  call  a  wastrel, 
though  he  was  of  good  family,  had  a  public-school 
education,  and,  I  believe,  a  commission  in  the  British 
Army — that  school  for  saints.  He  went  wrong  some- 
how, and,  as  young  men  will — it  is  a  great  mystery — 
though  he  knew  he  was  breaking  his  mother's  heart — 
he  was  not  particular  about  his  father.  He  went  on 
and  went  down.  He  left  the  army,  went  to  America, 
took  part  in  the  Cuban  War,  got  wounded.  His  people 
at  home  knew  nothing  about  it;  he  went  off  by  him- 
self, sank  lower  and  lower,  until  in  a  public-house 
brawl  somewhere  he  was  ^seriously  hurt,  and  had  to 
lie  up  for  a  while.  Then  he  took  a  situation  as 
gardener,  in  order  to  think  over  the  course  that  he  had 
been  adopting  up  to  then,  and  have  time  to  do  it.  He 
said  one  day,  "  It  seemed  to  me,  while  I  was  at  my 
daily  task  in  the  garden,  as  though  the  Spirit  of  all 
things  spoke  to  me,  remonstrated  with  me,  humbled 
me,  called  me,  and  I  found  myself  saying  in  reply,  '  If 
You  will  help  me,  I  will.'  "  So  slender  was  his  theol- 
ogy that  he  did  not  know  who  Jesus  Christ  was, 
though  he  had  thumbed  the  prayer-book  every  time 
he  had  gone  to  church  in  his  boyhood,  and  repeated 
with  the  rest.  "  Through  Jesus  Christ  our  Lord."  He 
had  a  very  hazy  idea  of  the  identity  of  the  Master.  He 
just  prayed  through  Jesus  Christ  our  Lord.  His  first 
act  was  to  purchase  a  Bible;  he  read  these  Gospels, 
and  particularly  these  valedictory  chapters  and  utter- 
ances in  St.  John's  Gospel,  and  then  he  said,  "  I  found 
out  who  Jesus  Christ  was;  I  made  no  theory  about  it, 
but  I  said  to  myself,  His  was  the  voice  that  I  heard  in 


PRAYING    IN    CHRIST   JESUS     185 

the  garden."  You  may  live  for  a  hundred  years  as  a 
Christian  man,  but  you  will  never  get  any  nearer  to 
reality  than  that.  I  might  have  said  to  him,  by  the 
Holy  Spirit,  it  was  true,  Christ  spoke  to  you  in  the 
garden.  But  he  would  not  have  known  exactly  what 
I  meant.  It  was  quite  enough  for  him  to  say  that 
Christ  spoke — this  was  the  voice  that  I  heard  in  the 
garden — tremendous,  intimate,  personal,  near.  The 
Christ  spoke  and  claimed  him,  and  he  serves  Him  to- 
day as  a  faithful,  humble  follower,  working  in  the 
Anglican  Church,  his  experience  all  his  own.  For 
Christ  never  comes  to  any  two  men  in  precisely  the 
same  way.  Every  man  has  his  own  value  with  the 
living  Lord.  Suppose  you  were  to  ask  that  man 
whether  he  thinks  he  is  heard  by  the  Lord  of  life  and 
death  he  prays  to.  He  would  make  answer,  "  Yes, 
for  I  stand  in  the  atmosphere  of  the  Christ;  His  spirit 
is  my  teacher.  I  would  rather  not  pray  against  His 
will;  but,  when  praying,  I  am  rising  and  learning  how 
to  pray.  His  words  abide  in  me.  I  ask  what  God 
wills  and  it  is  done."  I  am  trying  to  be  as  simple  and 
plain  as  I  can,  and  emphatic  in  the  statement  of  truth. 
I  don't  want  to  say,  "  If "  and  "  but " — you  shall  be 
heard  now,  but  you  shall  not  be  heard  then;  you  may 
pray  about  that,  but  you  must  leave  this  out.  You 
may  pray  about  anything  that  matters  to  your  experi- 
ence, but  if  you  pray  in  the  Spirit  of  Christ  you  will 
soon  find  that  some  of  your  old  petitions  are  left  be- 
hind. Prayer  wins  a  man  away  from  selfishness. 
Praying,  said  the  present  Bishop  of  Oxford,  will  either 
make  a  man  leave  off  sinning,  or  sinning  must  make 
him  leave  off  praying.  If  you  come  to  me  with 
curious  questions  about  whether  you  can  pray  about 


186      CITY    TEMPLE    SERMONS 

the  removal  of  the  street-pump,  or  something  of  that 
sort,  my  answer  is.  Abide  in  Christ,  and  you  won't  be 
thinking  about  the  removal  of  the  street-pump;  you 
will  be  thinking  upwards,  and  to  be  thinking  upwards 
is  to  be  growing  nobler  as  you  pray.  "  Abide  in  me 
and  I  in  you  " — fusion  with  Christ,  to  be  looking  at 
His  dear  face  while  we  pray,  to  so  escape  from  all 
things  sordid,  selfish,  mean,  base,  that  we  rise  into 
another  atmosphere  and  to  another  life,  and  the  im- 
pulse to  pray  to  the  Master  leads  to  our  placing  our- 
selves upon  the  altar  of  service  for  Him,  and  you  learn 
by-and-bye  that  to  pray  in  His  Spirit  is  to  enter  into 
that  perfect  freedom  of  the  sons  of  God,  without 
which  eternal  life  is  not  yours.  Let  me  give  you  an- 
other picture.  When  I  spoke  just  now  about  personal 
atmosphere  I  could  see  the  puzzled  look  on  the  faces 
of  some  of  my  hearers.  Do  you  not  feel  that  every 
person  has  his  individual  value  for  you,  and  that  you 
know  that  person's  presence,  apart  from  speech,  to 
have  made  a  certain  influence  upon  you?  One  man 
comes  to  you  with  words  of  honeyed  greeting,  but  you 
don't  trust  him,  for  behind  the  words  there  is  some- 
thing that  he  did  not  say  which  is  eloquent  to  your 
spirit — his  personality,  you  call  it;  his  aura,  his  at- 
mosphere, is  making  its  impression  all  the  time.  You 
can  close  yourself  up  against  it,  you  can  keep  him  off, 
sometimes  with  difficulty;  nevertheless,  you  can  and 
you  do. 

It  is  possible  to  shut  oflf  the  higher,  as  well  as  the 
lower,  to  keep  a  good  man  at  bay  as  well  as  a  bad  man, 
and  in  the  differing  values  of  the  people  who  come 
to  us  we  are  either  better  or  worse,  according  as  we 
receive  them.     One  man  will  come  to  me  downstairs. 


PRAYING   IN    CHRIST   JESUS    187 

I  know  as  well  as  can  be,  and  he  will  tire  me  while  he 
talks,  not  because  he  is  saying  stupid  things — I  shall 
be  saying  them  myself — but  he  exhausts  me  somehow 
— not  by  his  speech,  but  by  himself.  Another  man 
will  come  and  talk  to  me  and  vitalise  me;  I  feel  the 
better  for  having  shaken  that  man's  hand.  Another 
man  will  come  who  calls  forth  the  best  in  me;  perhaps 
I  feel  that,  though  there  were  no  speech  between  us, 
we  are  brothers;  spirit  makes  answer  unto  spirit. 
Every  man  throws  his  atmosphere  round  about  those 
with  whom  he  has  to  deal,  and  you  can  abide  in  the 
atmosphere  of  a  man  until  you  are  better,  if  he  is  bet- 
ter than  you,  or  worse,  if  he  is  worse.  You  can  open 
yourself  to  the  influence  of  a  man  so  that  your  own 
personality  is  dwarfed  and  injured,  or  expanded  and 
glorified.  Lift  all  these  things  to  the  plane  where 
they  should  be,  and  think  of  the  Person  behind  all, 
all  personality,  the  Lord  of  all  life,  and  He  who  holds 
the  keys  of  death  and  hell.  An  atmosphere  it  is,  but 
a  Person  in  the  middle  of  it,  through  whom  and  to 
whom  I  pray.  We  can't  lose  sight  of  the  face  of  the 
Master.  We  are  praying  to  God  and  trying  to  get  a 
glimpse  of  the  face  of  the  Father;  our  eyes  rest  upon 
the  countenance  of  the  Son.  I  never  can  get  nearer  to 
God  than  Christ  takes  me,  and  I  never  want  God  to  be 
other  than  Christ  is.  If  the  Eternal  is  like  Jesus,  then 
it  is  well  with  humanity  all  the  time. 

One  more  familiar  and  homely  figure.  Last  Thurs- 
day there  were  not  quite  so  many  people  here  as  there 
are  now.  Many  of  you  had  gone  for  a  holiday.  A 
number  of  you  who  were  here  last  Thursday,  and  who 
would  dearly  like  to  have  been  out  of  London  and 
away  at  the  dear  old  home,  will  appreciate  what  I  ara 


188      CITY    TEMPLE    SERMONS 

going  to  say.  Here  is  the  sort  of  letter  that  one  of  you 
wrote  home — the  young  fellows  behind  the  counter,  I 
mean: 


"  Dear  Mother  :  I  can't  get  off  this  Easter.  I 
should  only  have  one  day,  and  I  am  rather  short  of 
money,  and  it  is  a  long  way  home.  Could  you 
not  persuade  father  to  send  me  a  sovereign  or  two 
before  Whitsuntide,  and  I  will  come  home  then  and 
have  one  week-end  with  you." 

That  was  a  prayer,  was  it  not,  sent  to  somebody 
far  away,  but  somebody  on  whom  you  can  count.  You 
know  perfectly  well  that  dear  old  lady  will  wring  that 
money  out  of  your  father,  be  he  never  so  scrupulous, 
though  he  can  tell  her  all  kinds  of  wise  things  about 
the  way  in  which  you  are  sure  to  behave  with  it  when 
you  might  get  it.  She  will  get  it  beforehand,  and  you 
will  have  it  in  time,  with  a  carefully  made-out  list  of 
the  railway  trains  and  her  advice  to  you  to  take  the 
earliest  of  the  lot.  And  when  you  see  her  face  to  face 
you  will  simply  have  a  closer  vision  of  the  face  that  you 
have  seen  all  the  time.  You  sent  your  first  request 
to  an  atmosphere  of  personal  experience,  which  will 
be  intensified,  but  not  something  new,  when  you  meet 
her  by-and-bye  in  the  holiday  time  you  have  been  seek- 
ing for.  I  know  not  that  we  can  come  very  much 
nearer  to  the  great  heart  of  things  than  by  such  sym- 
bolism as  this.  God  is  at  once  Father  and  Mother,  and 
I  often  think  that  the  mother  side  of  God  is  to  be 
sought  in  Christ.  I  am  not  the  first  to  have  said  that 
by  a  great  deal.  He  is  the  pledge  and  the  guarantee 
of  the  goodwill  of  the  Father.     We  not  only  pray  in 


PRAYING   IN    CHRIST    JESUS    1B9 

His  Spirit,  but  His  Spirit  teaches  us  to  pray.  More 
than  that,  His  promise  is  towards  you  and  me,  that  as 
our  prayers  ascend  from  the  lower  to  the  higher  hu- 
manity, from  our  needy  soul  to  the  Christ  who  has 
been  touched  with  the  feeling  of  our  infirmity,  it  is 
through  and  by  Him  that  you  have  passed  on,  passed 
on  to  the  heart  of  the  Father.  We  have  a  Mediator 
who  ever  liveth  to  make  intercession  for  us.  Think  of 
that,  you  men,  who  have  been  making  ducks  and 
drakes  of  your  opportunities.  Think  of  the  boundless 
pity  at  the  heart  of  our  Father-Mother  God,  our 
Brother  Christ.  Think  of  that  ceaseless  solicitude  for 
the  souls  of  men,  which  knows  no  change,  or  ever  shall 
till  earth's  foundations  melt  away.  Think  of  it  when 
you  are  low  down  in  the  depths  of  despondency,  when 
you  feel  your  human  weakness  most,  and  get  up  again 
and  be  strong,  for  the  spiritual  man  is  the  strongest 
of  men,  seeing  he  is  joined  to  the  Spirit  of  all,  and  is 
abiding  in  Christ  Jesus.  Mary  Queen  of  Scots  used 
to  say  she  feared  the  prayers  of  John  Knox  more  than 
she  feared  an  army  of  many  thousand  men.  There  are 
men  in  the  world  to-day  who  do  not  appear  much  in 
the  newspaper,  and  whose  names  are  seldom  on  the 
lips  of  the  public;  but  some  day  you  will  find  out  how 
many  currents  and  influences  they  have  been  setting 
going  in  the  world  of  things  seen  and  unseen.  There 
are  some  people  who  are  omnipotent — I  am  not  using 
the  language  of  extravagance — omnipotent  for  the 
things  that  they  want.  They  can  lay  firm  hold  on  the 
things  of  God,  and  they  can  be  trusted  with  His  things, 
for  they  have  been  taught  by  the  spirit  of  Christ  ere 
they  knelt  to  pray. 

Dr.  Parker  once  said  to  me,  in  his  impulsive,  hyper- 


190      CITY    TEMPLE    SERMONS 

bolical  fashion,  "  I  know  a  man  who,  if  he  were  to 
pray  for  that  chimney,  would  have  it;  it  would  come 
itself.  I  never  could  do  that.  But  I  should  be  much 
more  afraid  of  that  man's  prayers  than  I  should  of  an 
Act  of  Parliament."  That  was  only  his  forceful, 
pungent,  eager  way  of  putting  a  profound  spiritual 
truth.  Prayer  is  the  explanation  of  personal  value; 
prayer  is  working  with  the  arm  of  God;  prayer  is  con- 
verse with  the  unseen;  prayer  is  listening,  as  well  as 
speaking.  The  Master's  words  abide  in  us  as  well  as 
our  words  abide  in  Him,  and,  as  I  think  I  have  said 
before,  in  the  words  of  that  mystical  poet  who  changed 
our  outlook  upon  nature  and  God  a  century  or  more 
ago — Wordsworth : 

*'  Think  you  'mid  all  this  mighty  sum 

Of  things  for  ever  speaking 
That  nothing  of  itself  will  come. 

But  we  must  still  be  seeking  ? 
Nor  less  I  deem  that  there  are  powers, 

Which  of  themselves  our  minds  impress, 
And  we  can  feed  this  mind  of  ours 

In  a  wise  passiveness." 

It  is  well  sometimes  to  be  still  in  the  presence  of  Christ 
that  He  may  teach  us  how  to  pray,  and  when  once  we 
learn  of  Him  and  feel  that  His  Spirit  is  in  harmony 
with  all  that  we  utter  and  will,  we  are  praying  with 
those  who  prevail,  and  the  answer  to  the  prayer  comes 
in  the  moment  of  the  praying.  We  have  set  heaven 
going,  and  the  reply  will  soon  c.ome.  "  Ask,  and  ye 
shall  receive;  seek,  and  ye  shall  find;  knock,  and  it  shall 
be  opened  unto  you.  Hitherto  have  ye  asked  nothing 
in  My  Name.  Ask,  and  ye  shall  receive,  that  your 
joy  may  be  full." 


XVI 
THE  ESSENCE  OF  CHRISTIANITY* 

Thus  saith  the  high  and  lofty  One  that  inhabiteth  eter- 
nity, whose  name  is  Holy;  I  dwell  in  the  high  and  holy 
place,  with  him  also  that  is  of  a  contrite  and  humble  spirit, 
to  revive  the  spirit  of  the  humble,  and  to  revive  the  heart  of 
the  cotitrite  ones. — Isaiah  Ivii.  ij. 

1HAD  at  first  intended  to  take  for  my  text  one 
clause  of  this  verse,  and,  indeed,  I  think  now 
that  I  may  venture  with  you  to  place  the  em- 
phasis upon  that  particular  clause,  keeping  the  con- 
text in  our  mind,  "  With  him  also."  I  need  not  remind 
you  of  the  circumstances  under  which  the  text  came 
to  be  written  or  of  the  state  of  mind  to  which  the  ex- 
hortation was  directed.  Suffice  it  to  say  that  it  was 
aimed  at  the  heart  of  a  people  who,  in  keeping  their 
conscience,  so  to  speak,  had  lost  the  idea  of  spiritual 
fellowship  with  God.  In  obedience  to  what  they  be- 
lieved to  be  the  demands  and  exactions  of  the  law  of 
God,  they  had  forgotten  God  Himself;  therefore  they 
were  reminded  of  the  true  condition  of  heart  under 
which  a  man  can  expect  to  approach  God,  and  to  be 
accepted  of  Him.  They  were  told  in  effect,  in  this 
prophetic  language,  that  only  that  character  is  accept- 
able to  God  in  which  humility  is  the  most  prominent 
ingredient.  Nay,  would  we  not  be  justified  in  going 
so  far  as  to  say  that  not  character  but  spirit  is  the 
*  Preached  in  Union  Church,  Brighton,  Sunday  morning, 
September  15,  1901. 

191 


192      CITY    TEMPLE    SERMONS 

essential  condition  upon  which  we  can  enter  into  re- 
lationship with  God?  For  no  human  character,  how- 
ever exalted,  can  claim  to  be  sinless,  but  every  human 
character,  however  seemingly  pure,  or  however  ut- 
terly debased,  can  blend  at  once  with  the  spirit  of  God 
if  it  possesses  the  spirit  of  lowliness.  That  is  the  mes- 
sage that  the  prophet  endeavours  here  to  convey. 

It  is  of  the  highest  importance  in  this  as  in  every 
other  generation  that  men  should  arrive  at  right  views 
about  God.  A  very  trite  observation  to  make,  and  yet 
how  much  we  necessarily  attach  to  it.  Not  one  ser- 
mon only,  but  every  sermon,  must  be  concerned  with 
that  primary  proposition.  It  is  of  the  first  necessity 
that  we  should  all  have  and  keep  right  views  about 
the  nature  of  God.  The  late  Master  of  Balliol,  Dr. 
Jowett,  was  once  addressed  by  a  lady  who  believed 
him  to  be  somewhat  liberal  and  vague  in  his  views 
iof  religion;  she  said,  "Sir,  can  you  tell  us  what  you 
Ireally  think  about  God?  "  The  answer  was:  "  Madam, 
fit  matters  very  little  what  I  think  about  God,  but  it 
matters  a  great  deal  what  God  thinks  about  me." 
Yet  beneath  that  assertion  there  was  another  which 
you  can  distinguish  at  once,  namely:  It  matters  very 
much  what  I  think  God  thinks  about  me.  It  is  es- 
sential that  I  should  have  right  views  of  that 
Divine  nature  which  is  every  hour  appealing  to 
mine,  the  one  unescapable  reality  of  my  life,  with- 
out which  one  can  neither  think,  nor  speak,  nor 
act.  Every  man  must  positively  or  negatively 
define  his  attitude  to  God.  See  what  mistakes 
have  been  made  in  time  past,  not  by  Israel  only, 
but  by  Christendom,  when  men  have  got  away  from 
the  true  conception  of  the  nature  of  God.     They  have 


ESSENCE    OF    CHRISTIANITY    193 

defined  Him  sometimes  as  an  implacable  Deity,  with- 
out pity,  without  mercy  for  the  frailties  of  humanity. 
He  has  been  worshipped  in  blood;  the  worship  even 
of  the  meek  and  lowly  has  often  been  a  worship  of 
agony  and  tears.  In  past  history  it  has  sometimes 
seemed  as  though  the  Christian  Church  was  a  malign 
influence  in  the  world,  so  prominent  were  her  pro- 
fessors in  the  infliction  of  anguishing  pain.  Men 
might  have  been  saved  all  that  if  they  had  kept  close 
to  intelligent  vision  and  thought  of  Him  whose  name 
and  nature  are  love. 

But  at  the  present  day  it  seems  as  though  we  are  in 
danger  of  passing  to  another  extreme.  We  preach 
His  love,  and  forget  His  holiness.  For  He  who  is 
high  and  lofty  above  the  greatest  that  humanity  can 
ever  conceive  has  become  to  us,  as  it  seems,  a  Being 
too  familiar,  whose  stock-in-trade  is  mercy,  who  is 
ever  waiting  to  forgive,  and  whose  love  is  such  that 
He  will  ever  spare  the  loved,  however  heinous  may  be 
the  transgression  against  Himself.  That  is  not  Scrip- 
tural, that  is  not  the  truth  concerning  the  God  whom 
Jesus  came  to  declare.  Awful  holiness  inaccessible 
to  natural  human  nature  it  is.  Love  is  an  ingredient 
and  an  expression  of  that  holiness,  it  may  be,  but  it 
is  a  love  that  will  not  spare  the  loved.  When  we  sin 
against  Him,  we  sin  to  our  own  hurt.  It  is  impossible 
for  us  to  live  as  though  there  were  no  God,  and  not 
be  punished  for  the  sin  of  that  practical  godlessness. 
He  dwells  in  the  high  and  holy  place  to  judge  the 
earth.  True,  there  is  a  love  of  God  which  passeth 
knowledge,  to  which  we  cannot  attain  even  in  under- 
standing; but  true  it  is  that  there  is  a  wrath  of  God 
revealed  against  all  the  ungodliness  and  unrighteous- 


194      CITY    TEMPLE    SERMONS 

ness  of  men.  In  the  present  day  it  seems  to  me  that 
right  views  of  God  need  a  certain  readjustment;  a 
proper  emphasis  is  to  be  given  to  both  aspects  of  the 
character  of  Him  whom  we  worship,  the  holy  One 
who  inhabiteth  eternity.  God  is  love,  God  is  holiness; 
therefore,  it  is  that  the  Lord  our  God  is  a  consuming 
fire. 

One  reason  why  it  is  essential  to  have  right  views 
of  God  is  because  the  highest  reach  of  human  excel- 
lence that  has  ever  yet  been  known  is  rather  a  Divine 
impulse  than  a  set  of  rules.  Israel  made  the  mistake 
of  reversing  those  two  sets  of  ideas.  None  of  us  can 
claim  any  goodness  at  all.  It  is,  as  it  were,  drawn  out 
of  us  by  an  impulse  of  devotion  to  a  person.  Why,  that 
is  true  in  small  things  as  well  as  great.  Every  child 
has  his  ideal  and  his  hero.  I  have  seen  young  men 
who  unconsciously  had  selected  the  type  of  char- 
acter which  they  wished  to  make  their  own,  embodied 
it  in  a  person,  and  then  gave  a  certain  devotion  to  that 
person,  either  for  good  or  ill  to  their  own  nature.  We 
read  in  George  Eliot  of  a  character  who  was  saved  by 
devotion  to  the  sweet  innocence  of  a  little  child. 
Silas  Marner  was  a  miser,  somebody  came  and  took 
away  his  hoard,  and  this  poor  misanthropic,  lonely 
man,  who  had  been  wronged  by  his  fellow-creatures 
and  who  repudiated  them  with  bitterness,  was  re- 
deemed from  his  life  of  sordidness,  and  bitterness  and  ■ 
anguish  of  spirit  by  the  sweet  innocence  of  a  little 
child  that  was  left  on  his  hearthrug.  His  life  of  de- 
votion to  her  had  something  in  it  akin  to  reverence; 
he  reverenced  the  sweetness  and  the  innocence  which, 
though  it  be  not  the  highest  form  of  goodness,  yet 
blends  with  it,  and  he  was  saved  by  that.     This  again 


ESSENCE    OF   CHRISTIANITY     195 

is  Jesus's  method.  Our  Master  was  his  own  Gospel. 
Men  came  to  Him  one  by  one  attracted  by  the  win- 
someness  of  Jesus.  He  spake,  of  course,  as  never  man 
spake,  and  He  was  as  never  man  was,  and,  as  has 
been  well  said  by  one  who  has  a  right  to  speak  upon 
such  subjects,  he  reversed  our  ordinary  experience 
about  our  human  ideals.  The  nearer  we  draw  to  an 
individual,  as  a  rule  the  more  plainly  we  see  the  flaws 
and  the  crevices  in  his  character ;  but  the  nearer  men 
drew  to  Jesus  the  more  His  faultless  excellence  de- 
clared itself;  they  were  drawn  to  Him,  they  hardly 
knew  why,  with  a  reverence  and  a  devotion  unex- 
ampled in  the  history  of  the  world.  We  give  it  now  in 
the  same  language  almost  and  certainly  with  the  same 
emphasis  that  Christendom  has  always  given  it: 

"  Jesus  !  the  very  thought  of  Thee 
With  sweetness  fills  my  breast, 
But  sweeter  far  Thy  face  to  see, 
^_  And  in  Thy  presence  rest." 

He  sums  up  for  us  everything  that  is  good,  and  in- 
stead of  thinking  about  rules  of  service  we  think  about 
Him,  and  then  we  are  compelled  towards  the  goodness 
which  ever  recedes  as  we  approach  it,  which  is  a  spirit 
rather  than  a  code.  See  you  that,  brethren?  The 
moment  we  form  our  conception  of  God  from  what 
we  think  about  Jesus,  a  divine  impulse  is  communi- 
cated to  character,  men  rise  above  rules  and  sets  of 
rules,  above  ritual  and  observance,  above  such  condi- 
tions as  the  Jews  had  set  themselves,  and  the  prophetic 
voice  speaks  not  without  but  within  our  hearts,  when 
it  says,  "  Thus  saith  the  high  and  lofty  One  that  in- 
habiteth  eternity,  whose  name  is  Holy  " — so  holy  that 
we  cannot  approach  unto  it — "  I  dwell  in  the  high  and 


196     CITY    TEMPLE    SERMONS 

holy  place  with  him  also,"  as  Jesus  did,  "  that  is  of 
a  contrite  and  humble  spirit,  to  revive  the  spirit  of  the 
humble,  and  to  revive  the  heart  of  the  contrite  ones." 
When  we  think  upon  these  things  we  begin  to  under- 
stand what  it  is  that  God  expects  from  us  in  the  ser- 
vice and  devotion  of  the  heart. 

Does  it  not  sometimes  seem  as  though  our  first  ac- 
quaintance with  such  an  ideal  as  is  here  presented 
repels  rather  than  attracts  us  towards  excellence  of 
character  and  of  life?  There  must  be  in  a  congrega- 
tion such  as  that  now  gathered  before  me  one  who 
has  given  up  a  little  the  ideals  that  he  formerly  set  be- 
fore him;  he  has  gone  back.  Let  me  ask  you  what 
you  have  done  it  for,  and  when  you  have  answered 
the  question,  then  we  shall  understand  what  I  am 
trying  to  advance  to,  what  I  may  call  the  repelling 
influence  of  Jesus,  the  cooling  influence  of  Christ 
upon  the  human  spirit.  Once  you  had  high  ideals 
of  duty  and  nobleness,  of  the  excellence  of  self-sacri- 
fice, of  what  you  might  be  able  to  effect  by  the  full 
obligation  of  yourself;  as  you  have  got  older  those 
ideals  are  chilled.  Why?  Partly  because  you  have 
found  so  little  room  for  their  exercise,  partly  because 
you  have  been  disappointed  in  the  ungenerous  re- 
sponse of  humanity,  and  partly  because  of  the  impos- 
sibility of  climbing  to  and  resting  upon  that  level  of 
attainment  that  you  had  marked  out  for  yourself. 
Think  what  a  diflference  it  makes  when  the  idea  re- 
cedes, and  it  seems  impossible  that  you  can  be  carried 
toward  it ;  chilled  is  the  impulse  of  your  heart  toward 
things  that  are  righteous  and  good.  In  the  days 
when  Jesus  came  preaching,  men  gathered  to  Him  at 
first  with  an  enthusiasm  for  an  ideal  which  by-and-bye 


ESSENCE    OF    CHRISTIANITY     19V 

dissipated  itself.  The  effect  of  Jesus  upon  some  of 
those  who  knew  Him  best  was  to  cause  fear  and  awe. 
In  one  hour  of  wonder,  when  the  apostle  Peter,  who 
had  given  himself  as  he  thought  body  and  soul  to  the 
Master's  service,  was  surprised  by  the  sudden  vision 
of  His  greatness,  the  impulse  of  his  nature  was  to  fling 
himself  down  before  Christ,  and  say,  *'  Depart  from 
me,  for  I  am  a  sinful  man,  O  Lord!"  The  ideal  of 
service  within  his  own  heart  was  chilled  by  the  thought 
of  its  impossibility  when  he  came  near  to  the  speck- 
less  holiness  of  Christ.  I  think  it  has  been  and  is  so 
even  now.  As  we  fall  into  sin,  blunder  succeeds 
blunder,  failure  follows  failure,  we  think  how  impos- 
sible that  holy  life  is,  how  far  away  it  is;  if  we  think 
about  it  at  all,  the  ideal  of  Christ  rebukes  it.  Jesus 
chills  the  impulse  even  towards  Himself  by  the  thought 
that  He  Himself  is  "  The  high  and  lofty  One  that  in- 
habiteth  eternity,  whose  name  is  Holy."  Oh,  how  im- 
possible it  is  that  we  can  be  holy  too ! 

That  brings  me  very  close  to  the  message  of  the 
text,  and  I  am  going  to  try  to  show  how  much  that 
message  is  the  message  of  Jesus.  "  With  him  also!  " 
True  it  is  that  Jesus  is  the  high  and  lofty  One,  but 
He  dwells  with  him  also  who  is  not  good  and  knows 
that  he  is  not  good;  with  him  also  who  has  failed  in 
life  and  knows  that  he  has  failed;  with  him  also  who 
has  come  down  so  low  in  his  own  esteem  that  he  can 
get  no  lower ;  with  him  also  this  Lord  of  life  and  death 
abides  who  is  of  a  contrite  and  humble  spirit,  with 
him  also  abides  our  Master,  not  simply  to  sympathise, 
but  to  save,  to  revive  the  heart  of  the  contrite  one,  our 
Jesus  comes.  This  is  the  great  message  of  Christianity 
to  the  world.     It  is  a  message  of  hope  to  every  heart. 


198      CITY    TEMTLE    SERMONS 

None  of  us  plume  ourselves  upon  what  we  have  done 
for  God,  and  there  is  no  Christian  who  would  not  be 
willing  to  confess  himself  unworthy  in  His  service;  the 
more  truly  he  apprehends  what  it  is  that  God  expects 
from  him,  the  less  is  he  likely  to  claim  that  he  has 
fulfilled  that  expectation  in  his  own  life.  You  do  not 
want  to  do  that,  do  you?  And  the  very  opposite  feel- 
ing must  not  be  indulged  in.  So  soon  as  you  have 
discovered  your  own  failure  and  unworthiness,  so  soon 
have  you  discovered  the  Spirit  of  Christ,  who  abides 
with  those  who  need  Him  most  and  are  conscious  of 
that  need.  High  and  lifted  up,  indeed,  He  dwells 
with  him  also  that  is  of  a  contrite  and  humble  spirit. 

Let  us  examine  the  spirit  with  which  God  cannot 
enter  into  relationship.  There  is  the  spirit  of  pride, 
arrogance,  self-sufficiency,  self-complacency,  selfish 
worldliness,  even  of  self-pity,  self-contentment,  which 
passes  where  it  is  a  spirit  which  lays  no  claim  to  par- 
ticular excellence,  but  a  spirit  which  is  not  prepared 
for  self-abasement.  Let  us  examine  our  own  hearts, 
and  see  which  of  these  spirits  is  predominant  in  us  at 
the  present  moment.  Your  pride  will  be  crushed, 
your  arrogance  will  be  overthrown,  your  self-compla- 
cency will  give  way  in  the  hour  of  need ;  God  will  show 
you  the  shameful  side  of  your  self-indulgence  pres- 
ently; there  is  no  room  for  self-complacency.  So,  as 
soon  as  we  begin  to  understand,  how  feeble  are  the 
props  that  support  our  life,  how  unworthy  of  trust  is 
this  arm  of  flesh!  God  can  find  no  entrance  into 
your  heart  while  you  think  how  much  is  due  to  you 
from  others,  and  how  little  due  to  them  from  you. 
God,  who  seeks  the  right  spirit  in  all  His  children, 
sometimes  brings  about  the  right  spirit  by  indulging 


ESSENCE    OF   CHRISTIANITY    199 

the  wrong  spirit,  until  it  is  filled  out.  God  takes  you 
very  gently  by  the  hand  and  leads  you  out  into  the 
desert  place,  until  you  begin  to  hunger  for  home;  and 
God  will  take  you  and  put  you  in  the  darkness  until 
you  begin  to  cry  out  for  the  light;  God  will  let  you 
go;  yea,  urge  you  to  go,  into  the  far  country,  until 
you  learn  to  know  the  husks  and  remember  the  bread 
in  the  Father's  house.  You  who  do  not  know  what  is 
the  meaning  of  that  which  has  come  to  you,  which  is  so 
hard  to  bear,  so  difficult  to  support,  so  impossible  to 
understand,  might  learn  from  the  text.  Contrite 
means  crushed;  sometimes  God  in  His  mercy  crushes 
us  into  the  right  spirit  for  the  destruction  of  the 
wrong.  Jesus,  who  spake  as  never  man  spake,  identi- 
fied Himself  with  the  promise  of  our  text.  I  only 
need  refer  you  to  Luke  iv.  for  you  to  see  how  easy  it 
is  of  application  to  the  needs  of  to-day  and  to  yours 
in  particular.  In  Luke  iv.  i8  we  read  that  our  Lord 
entered  into  the  synagogue — for  He  was  so  well  known 
— and  opened  the  Holy  Book,  as  we  have  opened  it 
this  morning,  and  quoted  the  words  of  the  same 
prophet : 

"  The  Spirit  of  the  Lord  is  upon  me,  because  He 
hath  anointed  me  to  preach  good  tidings  to  the  poor; 
He  hath  sent  me  to  heal  the  broken-hearted,  to  preach 
deliverance  to  the  captives,  and  recovering  of  sight 
to  the  blind,  to  set  at  liberty  them  that  are  bruised 
[the  contrite],  to  preach  the  acceptable  year  of  the 
Lord.  And  He  closed  the  book,  and  sat  down,  and 
said,  '  This  day  is  this  scripture  fulfilled  in  your 
ears.'  " 

How  beautiful  it  is  to  think  of  it!  The  Lord  of  the 
universe,    the    high    and    holy    One    that    inhabiteth 


200      CITY    TEMPLE    SERMONS 

eternity,  stood  amongst  men  as  the  lowly  One,  who 
came  not  to  be  ministered  unto,  but  to  minister — 
the  truth  which  seems  so  impossible  for  the  mind  to 
grasp,  but  which  countless  hearts  have  grasped  ere 
now,  that  Jesus,  who  was  before  all  things,  came  as  a 
suffering  Saviour  unto  His  own,  yet  was  rejected  by 
His  own.  He  who  dwells  in  the  high  and  holy  place 
came  to  dwell  with  him  also  that  is  of  a  contrite  heart 
and  humble  spirit;  this  same  Jesus,  who  is  despised 
and  rejected  by  men,  is  the  Judge  to  whom  account 
must  be  given  of  all  our  doings  in  this  life  of  ours. 
And  we  are  not  going  away  from  the  spirit  of  the 
text  if  we  identify  Him  with  that  which  it  contains; 
with  him  also  dwells  this  Jesus,  with  him  also  who  is 
of  a  contrite  and  humble  spirit.  Brethren,  think  of 
it,  the  Lord  of  the  universe  hanging  on  a  cross,  ago- 
nised, shamefully  intreated, rejected  of  men;  the  suffer- 
ing Messiah  giving  Himself  for  the  sins  of  men,  dwell- 
ing "  with  him  also  " — you  and  I,  each  one  of  us,  who 
are  of  a  contrite  and  humble  spirit,  and  have  discov- 
ered our  need  of  the  forgiveness  of  God.  This  is  the 
very  essence  of  the  Gospel.  We  talk  not  about  Christ 
so  much  as  an  ideal  as  a  Saviour,  when  we  have  right 
views  about  God,  and  have  entered  deep  into  the  con- 
ception of  His  nature,  to  save  men.  We  think  of  Him 
as  the  one  who  "  was  despised  and  rejected  of  men;  a 
man  of  sorrows,  and  acquainted  with  grief;  and  we 
hid  as  it  were  our  faces  from  Him;  He  was  despised, 
and  we  esteemed  Him  not.  Surely  He  hath  borne 
our  griefs,  and  carried  our  sorrows:  .  .  .  the 
chastisement  of  our  peace  was  upon  Him;  and  with 
His  stripes  we  are  healed."  A  modem  poet  places 
in  the  mouth  of  an  Oriental  who  is  supposed  to  have 


ESSENCE    OF    CHRISTIANITY    201 

been  listening  to  the  words  of  Jesus  some  such  senti- 
ment as  this: 

"  If  Jesus  Christ  is  a  man, 
And  only  a  man — I  say 
That  of  all  mankind,  I  will  cleave  to  Him, 
And  to  Him  will  I  cleave  alway." 

"  If  Jesus  Christ  is  a  God — 
And  the  only  God — I  swear 
I  will  follow  Him  through  heaven  and  hell. 
The  earth,  the  sea,  and  the  air." 

If  Jesus  Christ  is  what  He  claimed  to  be,  and  can 
do  what  He  claimed  to  do;  if  He  has  power  on  earth 
to  forgive  sins,  and  to  revive  the  hearts  of  the  contrite 
ones,  it  is  only  because  He  Himself  has  been  crushed. 
We  approach  One  who  has  been  bruised  for  our  trans- 
gression, wounded  for  our  iniquity;  the  chastisement 
of  our  peace  is  upon  Him,  and  with  His  stripes  we 
are  healed.  Let  us  take  the  message  of  that  text  to 
our  hearts,  and  we  will  follow  it  as  between  ourselves 
and  God,  and  take  it  as  a  personal  message. 


XVII 
THE   ANTIPHONY  OF   PENITENCE 

The  son  said :  Father,  I  have  sinned  against  heaven, 
and  in  thy  sight _  and  am  no  7nore  wot'thy  to  be  called  thy 
son. 

But  the  father  said :  Bring  forth  the  best  robe  and  put 
it  on  him. — Luke  xv.  21-22. 

IN  this  chapter  we  have  the  substance  of  our  Lord's 
teaching  on  the  great  mystery  of  repentance  and  re- 
mission of  sins.  This  teaching  was  given,  according 
to  some  of  the  best  expositors,  to  a  very  composite 
and  heterogeneous  body,  perhaps  that  one  which  was 
gathered  together  on  a  certain  historic  occasion  in 
the  courtyard  of  the  house  of  Matthew  the  Pubhcan. 
The  chapter  opens,  "  Then  drew  near  unto  Him  all 
the  pubHcans  and  sinners  for  to  hear  Him.  And  the 
Pharisees  and  Scribes  murmured,  saying,  This  man 
receiveth  sinners  and  eateth  with  them."  The  signif- 
icance of  those  few  words  reaches  far.  Our  Lord  had 
just  completed  His  synagogue  ministry;  He  had 
given  His  message  to  those  who  were  waiting  for  the 
deliverance  of  Israel;  and  now  He  hungered  and 
thirsted  to  carry  the  tidings  of  the  Divine  Fatherhood 
and  love  to  that  great  congregation  which  was  without 
the  synagogue — the  despised,  the  outcast,  the  pub- 
licans and  sinners.  To  that  end,  say  some.  He  asked 
Matthew  the  Publican  to  prepare  a  great  feast  in  his 

203 


ANTIPHONY    OF    PENITENCE     203 

house,  and  to  bring  there  such  persons  as  he  could 
find  and  whom  hitherto  Christ  had  not  known. 

The  teaching  contained  in  this  chapter  is  presented 
in  picture  form.  Three  parables  occupy  the  whole 
space — the  parables  of  the  lost  sheep,  the  lost  piece 
of  silver,  and  the  prodigal  son.  It  is  significant  that 
the  first  two  parables  teach  one  side  of  the  truth  the 
other  side  of  which  is  taught  by  the  third.  It  is  re- 
markable, too,  that  our  Lord  employs  two  parables 
to  teach  the  Divine  side  of  the  great  mystery  of  re- 
pentance, and  only  one  parable  to  teach  the  other, 
but  necessary,  side  of  the  same  mystery — the  human 
side.  The  first  and  second  parables  close  with  sub- 
stantially the  same  words — "  joy  in  the  presence  of 
the  angels  of  God  over  one  sinner  that  repenteth." 
But  is  not  this  strange  language?  and  is  not  this 
Teacher,  who  spake  as  never  man  spake  before,  a  little 
mistaken  in  the  application  of  His  own  figure?  For 
the  sheep,  according  to  our  notions  of  repentance,  did 
not  repent;  it  stayed  away,  and  remained  lost  until  the 
shepherd  went  to  find  it,  and  the  only  part  that  the 
sheep  had  to  do  with  the  rescue  was  in  submitting  to 
be  picked  up  and  carried  on  the  shoulders  of  the  good 
shepherd.  And  the  lost  piece  of  silver  did  not,  and 
could  not,  repent;  it  remained  lost  until  the  woman 
who  had  missed  it  re-discovered  it  and  put  it  back  in 
the  place  whence  it  had  fallen.  No,  there  are  no  mis- 
takes, as  we  shall  see.  It  is  not  the  parable  of  the 
prodigal  that  comes  first;  it  is  the  parable  of  the  lost 
sheep,  and  that  of  the  lost  piece  of  silver;  and  our 
Lord  means  us  to  imply,  surely,  that  repentance  is 
but  the  climax,  the  consummation  of  a  state  of  mind 
in  which  God  seeks  man  before  man  seeks  God.    Our 


204     CITY    TEMPLE    SERMONS 

text  is  the  epitome  of  this  teaching,  and  we  have  a 
Divine  side  and  a  human  side  to  the  great  mystery. 
The  human  side,  v^hich  is  but  the  response  to  the 
Divine  overture,  is  this :  "  Father,  I  have  sinned 
against  heaven  and  before  thee,  and  am  no  more 
vi^orthy  to  be  called  Thy  son  " ;  and  the  Divine  side 
is:  "Bring  forth  the  best  robe,  and  put  it  on  him, 
and  put  a  ring  on  his  hand,  and  shoes  on  his  feet,  and 
let  us  rejoice  and  be  glad,  for  this  my  son  was  dead 
and  is  alive  again;  he  was  lost  and  is  found." 

We  have,  therefore,  in  the  text,  remembering  the 
setting  in  which  it  is  found,  two  main  lines  of  thought: 
first,  the  attitude  of  the  penitent  towards  God;  and 
second,  the  Divine  response  to  the  cry  of  contri- 
tion. 

I.  The  attitude  of  the  penitent  is  expressed  in  the 
words,  "  Father,  I  have  sinned,  and  am  no  more 
worthy  to  be  called  a  son;  make  me  a  servant."  There 
is  some  difference  between  the  act  of  repentance  in 
which  this  expression  culminates  and  the  feeling  it- 
self in  which  it  takes  its  rise.  Penitence  is  a  state  of 
feeling;  repentance  is  an  act  of  the  will.  In  the  one 
word  stress  is  laid  upon  the  state  of  the  mind;  the 
second  places  stress  upon  the  will — repentance  is  ris- 
ing and  going  to  the  Father.  There  may  be  a  quasi- 
penitential  feeling  without  any  repentance  at  all,  and 
there  may  be  true  repentance — and  often  is — in  which 
there  is  very  little  of  contrite  sorrow  for  sin.  How 
often  people  get  wrong  about  that!  I  remember  that 
once  a  man  came  to  see  me  after  one  of  the  services 
in  my  church  at  Brighton,  and  told  me  one  of  the 
most  pitiful  stories  I  had  ever  heard.  He  said:  "I 
am  here  to-night  not  because  I  care  for  your  gospel, 


ANTIPHONY   OF   PENITENCE     205 

or  particularly  want  to  hear  it,  but  because  my  father 
asked  me  to  do  him  one  last  service ;  I  am  here 
for  a  few  moments,  and  then  I  am  going  back  to  a 
companionship  and  environment  which  is  ruin.  By 
sin  I  have  been  committed  to  the  custody  of  sin;  I 
have  broken  my  mother's  heart,  and  I  am  bringing 
down  my  father's  grey  hairs  in  sorrow  to  the  grave. 
And  I  cannot  get  free ;  it  seems  as  if  a  thousand  devils 
were  dragging  me  down  to  hell."  I  said:  "There  is 
nothing  so  fatalistic  in  your  experience  as  that;  turn 
round,  go  right,  repentance  is  but  a  turning  from 
sin  and  a  turning  towards  God."  He  said :  "  I  can- 
not repent;  I  cannot  feel  towards  God  as  you  preach- 
ers would  have  us  feel;  I  must  go  back  to  the  place 
I  have  left,  and  I  can  imagine  no  greater  hell  than  the 
life  I  am  living.  But  I  cannot  repent."  What  a  mis- 
take that  man  made!  What  a  mistake  thousands  of 
people  are  making  to-day  as  to  the  true  and  inner 
meaning  of  repentance!  Repentance  is  not  necessar- 
ily a  state  of  feeling;  we  may  only  discover  the  depth 
of  the  pit  whence  we  were  digging  long  after  our  re- 
pentance has  been  accepted  of  God.  Penitence  is  one 
thing;  repentance  is  another — the  climax  of  a  state  of 
mind  in  which  God  seeks  man  before  man  seeks  God, 
but  in  which  man  says:  "  I  will  arise  and  go  to  my 
Father;  I  have  sinned  against  heaven  and  before  Thee, 
and  am  no  more  worthy  to  be  called  thy  son;  make 
me  a  servant,  but  have  me  at  home  again."  The 
proper  attitude  of  the  penitent  is  such  as  is  described 
in  the  Word  before  us.  One  might  say,  we  ask 
nothing  of  God,  save  that  we  may  be  taken  out  of  the 
atmosphere  and  the  thraldom  of  sin,  placed  in  His 
presence,  given  another  chance,  though  not  the  chance 


206      CITY    TEMPLE    SERMONS 

that  was  forfeited — "  I  am  no  more  worthy  to  be  a 
son;  make  me  a  servant." 

"  Yes,  Thou  forgivest,  but  with  all  forgiving 
Canst  not  renew  mine  innocence  again; 
Make  Thou,  O  Christ,  a  dj'ing  of  my  living, 
Purge  from  the  sin  but  never  from  the  pain." 

II.  What  is  the  attitude  of  God  towards  the  peni- 
tent? What  is  the  Divine  response  to  contrition? 
The  Gospel  of  Christ:  there  is  none  other  name  under 
heaven  given  among  men  whereby  we  can  be  saved. 
The  response  is  this:  "  Bring  forth  the  best  robe,  and 
put  it  on  him  " — the  robe  of  righteousness,  the  gar- 
ment of  salvation;  not  the  second-best,  but  the  best 
robe,  the  best  there  is — a  way  up  from  the  lowest 
depths  of  the  valley  of  humiliation  to  the  shining 
height  of  holiness  where  dwelleth  God.  It  is  not  mine 
to  explain  that  mystery.  All  I  have  to  do  is  to  de- 
clare it — that  is  the  prophet's  office.  It  is  a  mystery 
so  deep  that  though  we  live  for  evermore  we  can  never 
fathom  its  mighty  depths.  From  the  lowest  depths  of 
the  valley  of  humiliation  there  is  a  way  up  to  the 
shining  heights  where  dwelleth  God.  The  vilest  sin- 
ner may  become  as  the  serenest  saint.  But  this  seems 
a  contradiction,  a  physiological  impossibility;  how  can 
that  which  hath  been  be  as  though  it  had  never  been? 
How  can  a  man  who  has  forfeited  his  opportunity, 
been  associated  with  sin,  in  a  manner  been  its  victim, 
its  slave — how  can  he  ever  be  freed  from  it?  I  do  not 
know;  nobody  knows;  we  know  it  is  done.  The  pas- 
sion of  Christ,  the  Cross  of  Calvary,  and  all  that  is 
signified  there,  have  something  to  do  with  the  puri- 
fication, the  cleansing  of  the  soul  from  sin;  and  there 


ANTIPHONY   OF   PENITENCE     20V 

is  no  stumbling-block  placed  in  the  way  of  a  man  who 
would  rise  to  God.  How  to  make  this  clearer  I  know 
not.  All  I  know  is  that  everyone  needs  to  know  it; 
for  there  is  none  righteous,  no,  not  one. 

I  remember  once,  in  preaching,  giving  an  example 
from  the  Roman  Catholic  tradition  concerning  Mary 
the  Magdalene.  Roman  Catholic  tradition  says  that 
Mary  Magdalene  and  Mary  of  Bethany  were  one  and 
the  same.  I  do  not  say  they  were;  it  is  a  tradition  that 
they  were.  After  saying  that  from  the  pulpit  a  woman 
came  to  me  and  said:  "  I  wish  you  hadn't  said  that; 
you  have  done  great  injustice  to  Mary  o-f  Bethany; 
you  have  made  me  think  differently  of  her  now;  you 
have  driven  her  from  the  sacred  place  in  my  spiritual 
imagination.  But  I  don't  believe  it,"  she  continued; 
"  Mary  of  Bethany  never  was  the  Magdalene.  I  cannot 
think  it;  she  was  too  pure."  "Then,"  I  said,  "there 
is  something  that  the  Gospel  of  Christ  cannot  do,  and 
there  is  a  stage  of  human  sin,  a  plane  of  experience 
upon  which,  if  you  once  get,  you  must  stop."  The 
world  says  that  soon  enough.  We  are  often  told  that 
we  make  forgiveness  too  easy  from  the  pulpit ;  the  fact 
is,  it  is  the  hardest  thing  possible  to  convince  a  man 
he  has  forgiveness  at  all.  The  ordinary  man  asso- 
ciates forgiveness  of  sin  with  remission  of  the  conse- 
quences. But  we  are  not  told  that  the  prodigal  went 
back  to  share  once  more  the  substance  that  he  spent 
in  riotous  living.  No;  what  he  wanted  was  to  get 
back  to  the  father.  His  attitude  was,  "  I  am  no  more 
worthy  to  be  called  a  son;  make  me  a  servant,"  and 
the  antiphony  of  that  cry  was,  "  My  son  was  dead 
and  is  alive  again;  bring  forth  the  best  robe  and  put 
it  on  him."    These  white  and  fleesy  clouds  that  float 


208      CITY    TEMPLE    SERMONS 

in  the  azure  vault  of  heaven,  whence  came  they?  Yes- 
terday they  were  trampled  underfoot  in  the  mire  and 
filth  of  London  streets.  These  beauteous  flowers, 
radiant  of  colour,  perfect  of  form,  breathing  the  aroma 
of  springtime,  whence  came  they?  Yesterday  they 
arose  from  foul-smelling  filth  and  corruption,  drawn 
thence  by  the  sunlight  of  heaven.  What  are  these 
that  are  arrayed  in  white  robes,  and  whence  came 
they?  These  are  they  which  came  out  of  great  tribula- 
tion, and  have  washed  their  robes  and  made  them 
white  in  the  blood  of  the  Lamb.  The  Magdalen  may 
become  as  the  brightest  saint  of  God.  The  man  who 
has  forfeited  his  opportunities  may  get  something  bet- 
ter back  again.  How  often  we  are  told  in  language 
that  seems  hopeless — ay,  in  the  language  of  ordinary 
human  experience — in  the  words  of  Omar  Khayyam; 

"  The  Moving  Finger  writes  ;  and,  having  writ, 
Moves  on  :  nor  all  your  Piety  nor  Wit 

Shall  lure  it  back  to  cancel  half  a  Line, 
Nor  all  your  Tears  wash  out  a  Word  of  it." 

It  is  a  different  Gospel  before  us  now.  The  Divine 
response  to  the  cry  of  contrition  is,  "  Bring  forth  the 
best  robe  and  put  it  on  him."  Those  who  have 
washed  their  robes  in  the  blood  of  the  Lamb  are  pure 
and  white  in  the  presence  of  the  Father.  "  Though 
your  sins  be  as  scarlet,  they  shall  be  as  white  as 
snow;  though  they  be  red  like  crimson,  they  shall  be 
as  white  as  wool." 

There  are  at  least  three  orders  of  experience  to 
which  the  words  of  our  text  are  specially  ap- 
plicable. First,  the  man  who  has  been,  and  every- 
body knows  has  been,  a  prodigal.  It  may  be 
you    have    found    your    way    into    this    house    of 


ANTIPHONY   OF   PENITENCE     209 

prayer,  and  taken  your  place  amongst  the  people 
of  God;  but  you  are  not  ordinarily  to  be  found 
here,  you  scarcely  know  why  you  are  here  now.  Per- 
haps it  is  that  in  early  childhood  you  remember  the 
sweet  sound  of  the  name  of  Jesus;  it  meant  something 
to  you  then — how  much  you  did  not  know  until  you 
had  been  in  a  far  country.  There  came  one  day 
when  you  went  forth  to  see  life,  as  you  called  it — see- 
ing the  life  that  is  only  a  synonym  oftentimes  for  see- 
ing hell — you  went  forth  to  the  great  city  to  push 
your  way,  and  in  doing  it  you  forfeited  your  inno- 
cence, you  sinned  against  God  and  society,  and  the 
former  punished  you  through  the  latter.  Society  has 
closed  its  doors  upon  you,  and  everybody  knows  you 
have  been  punished  for  your  transgression.  You  can- 
not go  back  to  the  place  that  you  have  forfeited;  you 
cannot  be  as  though  you  had  never  sinned;  and,  what 
is  more,  you  cannot  feel  as  though  you  had  never 
sinned.  You  think  to  yourself,  as  you  stand  in  the 
far  country  feeding  upon  husks,  Glad  would  I  have 
been  if  I  could  have  the  old  home  back  again!  Now, 
everybody  would  say  it  is  fitting  and  right  that  I 
should  preach  to  that  prodigal  whom  everybody 
knows  to  be  a  prodigal  in  the  words  of  my  text:  "  I 
have  sinned  against  heaven  and  before  thee,  and  am 
no  more  worthy  to  be  called  a  son;  make  me  a  serv- 
ant " ;  but  then  the  antiphony  comes — sound  of  grace 
and  sweetness  and  mercy! — "  Bring  forth  the  best 
robe  and  put  it  on  him."  You  are  wanted  up  there, 
and  there  is  a  place  for  you. 

But  there  is  a  second  order  of  experience,  not  quite 
so  obvious,  in  which  the  words  of  my  text  are  equally 
applicable.     Here  sits  a  man  whom  people   do  not 


210     CITY    TEMPLE    SERMONS 

know  to  be  a  prodigal.  He  has  done  well  in  the 
world;  he  has  obtained  place  and  power  and  high  re- 
pute; he  is  a  great  subscriber  to  things  philanthropic 
and  religious.  People  bow  to  him  and  speak  good  of 
his  name.  He  says  very  little  concerning  the  inner 
man;  but  if  you  could  get  there  and  hear  his  own 
story — years  ago  you  purchased  your  success  by  a 
foul  and  filthy  lie,  you  did  a  mean  and  shameful  thing, 
you  trampled  upon  somebody  weaker  than  yourself, 
you  sold  your  soul  for  gold.  You  have  got  what  you 
aimed  at ;  you  have  succeeded  in  everything  for  which 
you  tried;  what  you  lived  for  and  strove  for  has  come 
to  you.  Do  you  want  it?  In  that  far  country  are 
you,  and  feeding  upon  husks,  though  you  sit  in  the 
corner  pew  in  the  church.  And  on  the  other  side — 
what  a  revulsion  there  comes!  It  was  not  worth  do- 
ing wrong  for — nothing  ever  is  in  this  world,  as  said 
George  Eliot.  If  we  could  stand  again  on  the  other 
side  of  sin  there  is  no  man  but  would  say  that  to  gain 
something,  to  get  the  very  thing  you  sought  is  punish- 
ment. A  man  would  rather  be  without  the  fruits  of 
his  iniquity  once  he  has  experienced  them.  These 
prodigals  that  men  do  not  know  to  be  prodigal,  these 
men  in  a  far  country  feeding  upon  the  husks — do  they 
not  want  the  Gospel?  and  is  not  the  ring  of  the 
Gospel  which  I  preach  the  very  thing  they  want  ?  You 
think  that  by  sin  you  are  committed  to  the  custody 
of  sin ;  you  are  compelled  to  stay  in  the  place  in  which 
you  put  yourself;  you  cannot  retrace  that  path  back 
to  the  Father's  home  that  you  left  so  many  years  ago; 
no,  you  cannot  take  that  journey  unless  somebody 
comes  to  the  far  country  to  you.  That  is  it!  Every 
figure  fails  somewhere,  and  even  our  Lord's  illustra- 


ANTIPHONY    OF   PENITENCE     211 

tion  of  the  Prodigal  Son  cannot  teach  everything 
that  He  wanted  to  teach,  and  which  is  contained 
within  His  own  Gospel.  From  that  far  country 
the  prodigal  has  a  long  journey  back  to  the  Father; 
but  the  truth  is,  that  in  the  far  country  is  the  Good 
Shepherd  who  has  come  to  find  His  sheep.  You 
would  not  be  troubled  about  your  sin  but  that  God  is 
already  thinking  about  you;  and  you  might  say  to 
yourself — as  I  trust  you  do — in  the  words  of  a  great 
saint,  "  Thou  wouldst  not  seek  Him  if  Thou  hadst 
not  already  found  Him."  The  son  said:  "  Father,  I 
have  sinned  against  heaven  and  before  Thee,  and  am 
no  more  worthy  to  be  called  Thy  son;  make  me  a 
servant."  The  Father  says:  "  Bring  forth  the  best 
robe  and  put  it  on  him.  This  my  son  was  dead  and  is 
alive  again,  he  was  lost  and  is  found." 

But  there  is  a  third  order  of  experience,  in  which 
we  are  all  included.  Every  man  and  woman  who  has 
found  his  or  her  way  into  a  place  of  worship  must  be 
conscious,  or  has  been  conscious  to  a  greater  or  less 
extent,  of  a  great  dissatisfaction  with  things  as  they 
are,  and  you  wish  that  the  world  had  not  such  a  hold 
upon  you  as  it  has.  But  a  few  minutes  ago  we  were  in 
the  streets  of  the  great  city,  amid  the  roar  of  the 
trafBc,  taking  our  part  in  the  battle  of  life;  and  it  can- 
not be  but  that  we  have  been  to  some  extent  influ- 
enced by  the  traffic  with  which  we  have  engaged,  and 
we  want  to  get  free,  and  we  say: 

"  Oh,  for  a  man  to  arise  in_ rne_ that  the  rnan  I  am 
mighrcease  to  be!  " 

There IFnone  of  us  who,  when  he  comes  to  himself, 
could  say  other  than  this:  "Father,  I  have  sinned 
against  heaven  and  before  Thee,  and  am  no  more 


212      CITY    TEMPLE    SERMONS 

worthy  to  be  called  Thy  son;  make  me  a  servant." 
We  ask  for  nothing  but  to  get  to  God,  to  hold  the 
hand  of  Christ;  nothing  but  to  rescue  our  manhood, 
and  re-make  it  in  the  Spirit  of  our  Lord,  who  died 
for  us. 

What  is  to  be  done?  Thank  God  for  the  promise! 
We  have  not  been  left  to  ourselves.  Out  in  that  far 
country  the  Good  Shepherd  has  been  looking  for  His 
sheep;  we  are  just  God's  little  ones,  away  from  home, 
as  it  seems,  and  He  alone  can  bring  us  back.  The 
Shepherd  has  come  to  find  His  sheep.  Now  let  us  come 
hand  in  hand  to  the  Throne  of  Grace,  and  we  will  re- 
peat the  word  of  the  prodigal — for  such  are  we, 
whether  the  world  knows  it  or  not — "  Father,  I  have 
sinned  against  heaven  and  in  Thy  sight,  and  am  no 
more  worthy  to  be  called  a  son ;  make  me  a  servant." 
And  then — O,  mystery  of  Love  Divine! — there  comes 
in  the  accents  of  the  Elder  Brother :  "  Bring  forth  the 
best  robe  and  put  it  on  him,  and  put  a  ring  on  his 
hand  and  shoes  on  his  feet.  Let  us  rejoice  and  be 
glad  in  the  presence  of  the  angels  of  God;  for  this 
my  son,"  saith  the  Father — "  my  brother,"  saith  the 
Saviour — "  was  dead  and  is  alive  again,  was  lost  and 
is  found." 


XVIII 
THE   DAYSPRING 

The  day  spring  fro7n  on  high  hath  visited  us,  to  give  light 
to  thetn  that  sit  in  darkness  and  in  the  shadow  of  death,  to 
guide  our  feet  into  the  way  of  peace. — Luke  i.  yS-yg. 

IN  this  beautiful  Advent  song  we  have  a  fitting  ex- 
pression for  our  thoughts  this  Christmas  morn- 
ing, and  a  happy  motto  for  the  great  Christian 
festival  which  we  meet  to  celebrate.  There  is  a 
slight,  but  not  unimportant,  difference  in  phrasing  be- 
tween the  text  as  it  appears  in  the  older  and  in  the 
Revised  Version  of  the  New  Testament  respectively; 
the  former  reads  thus:  "  The  dayspring  from  on  high 
hath  visited  us,"  and  the  latter  reads,  probably  more 
accurately,  "  The  dayspring  from  on  high  shall  visit 
us."  There  is  no  contradiction ;  each  version  is  needed 
to  complete  the  other,  Zacharias,  looking  forward 
upon  the  Birth  which  was  to  come,  would  say:  "  The 
dayspring  from  on  high  shall  visit  us,"  but  he  might  as 
fittingly  have  said,  "  The  dayspring  from  on  high 
hath  visited  us,"  and  we  still  more  fitly  can  say  this 
morning,  looking  back  past  Calvary  to  the  cradle  at 
Bethlehem:  "The  dayspring  from  on  high  hath 
visited  us  " ;  the  world  can  never  again  be  as  though 
Christ  had  not  come;  and,  looking  forward  upon  the 
age  that  has  not  dawned,  we  can  say :  "  The  dayspring 

213 


2U      CITY    TEMPLE    SERMONS 

from  on  high  shall  visit  us  " — "  Ring  in  the  Christ  that 
is  to  be." 

The  incarnation  of  the  Son  of  God  did  not  begin 
with  the  lowly  birth  at  Bethlehem ;  it  began  when  time 
began;  it  is  still  going  on.  The  Christ  was  in  the 
world  ages  before  Jesus  was  laid  in  the  manger  be- 
neath the  lowly  cattle-shed ;  He  was  in  the  world,  and 
the  world  was  made  by  Him,  and  the  world  knew  Him 
not.  And  the  Christ  has  never  gone  away;  He  is  in 
the  world  to-day,  known  and  loved  and  trusted  by 
multitudes  of  those  who  through  Him  have  received 
the  adoption  of  sons.  Grace  and  truth  came  by  Jesus 
Christ,  who  is  the  same  yesterday,  and  to-day,  and  for 
ever.  Christ  is  born  anew  every  morning,  and  as 
many  as  receive  Him  to  them  gives  He  power  to  be- 
come the  sons  of  God.  "  The  dayspring  from  on  high 
hath  visited  us,  to  give  light  to  them  that  sit  in  dark- 
ness and  in  the  shadow  of  death,  to  guide  our  feet 
into  the  way  of  peace." 

What  do  we  mean  by  incarnation  ?  Suffer  me  to  re- 
call your  attention  to  this  very  familiar  but  little  under- 
stood word.  You  think  you  know  what  it  means,  and 
you  do,  partly.  You  would  say  at  once:  "  It  is  God 
becoming  man."  You  are  right,  but  we  might  invert 
the  phrase,  and  say  much  more  truly,  it  is  man  becom- 
ing God.  The  incarnation  is  the  process  whereby 
humanity  is  being  taken  to  its  home  in  God  or,  better 
still,  the  incarnation  is  the  discovery  that  humanity  is 
in  God. 

"  Follow  you  the  star  that  lights  the  desert  pathway,  yours 
or  mine, 
Till  you  see  the  highest  human  nature  is  Divine." 

You  may  be  tempted  to  say,  as  men  have  said  before, 


THE    DAY  SPRING  215 

"  The  birth  at  Bethlehem  is  a  beautiful  and  tender 
manifestation  of  the  Secret  Eternal,  but  how  could  it 
be  that  in  that  tiny  infant,  that  speck  of  humanity, 
dwelt  all  the  fulness  of  the  Godhead  bodily;  how 
could  it  be  that  that  little  hand,  so  helpless,  was  fitted 
to  hold  and  to  wield  the  sceptre  of  the  universe?" 
You  are  God  yourself,  and  God  is  everything  that  you 
are,  and  infinitely  more.  Humanity  is  one,  and  came  to 
itself  in  Jesus,  our  Head,  who  for  us  and  with  us  looks 
up  into  the  face  of  the  Father,  saying  My  God!  In 
Jesus  Christ,  and  in  the  lowly  birth  at  Bethlehem,  we 
have  learnt  our  solidarity;  we  are  one  and  indivisible. 
Individuality  is  precious,  but  humanity  is  not  divided. 
One  great  family  are  we,  with  one  Elder  Brother,  one 
Master,  one  Head,  one  Shepherd,  Redeemer,  and  Lord 
— Jesus  Christ — in  whom  we  have  all  the  fulness  of 
God.  In  Him  we  have  found  how  near  has  God  come. 
"  The  dayspring  from  on  high  hath  visited  us." 

There  is,  therefore,  a  peculiar  fitness  in  the  figure 
which  is  suggested  in  our  text — "  the  dayspring,"  in 
other  words,  the  sunrise.  When  we  see  the  orb  of 
day  slowly  coming  upwards  on  the  eastern  horizon, 
we  say  the  day  is  coming,  the  sun  is  rising  again  upon 
a  darkened  world.  But  you  know  well  what  is  taking 
place;  the  world  has  been  rolling  from  the  dark 
shadows  into  the  vast  ocean  of  light.  When  we  say 
"  the  da}^spring  from  on  high,"  we  say  humanity  has 
been  turning  out  of  darkness  into  light;  we  are  learn- 
ing to  look  into  the  face  of  God;  the  dayspring  from 
on  high  hath  visited  us,  we  have  lifted  our  faces  to  the 
light,  we  are  being  guided  into  the  paths  of  peace, 
the  shadows  are  fleeing  before  the  Sun  of  Righteous- 
ness with  healing  in  His  wings. 


216      CITY    TEMPLE    SERMONS 

The  associations  of  Christmas  Day  are  so  winsomely 
beautiful,  so  poetically  tender,  that  this  has  become 
the  sweetest  of  festivals  recognised  by  the  Christian 
Church,  and  so  long  as  there  is  a  place  in  human  na- 
ture for  poets,  for  the  mystic,  the  spiritual,  the  tender, 
so  long  will  Christmas  Day  hold  its  place.  This  is  the 
day  when  joy  and  sorrow  shake  hands,  when  we  feel, 
although  we  do  not  say,  that  sorrow  and  joy  condition 
each  other,  that  the  former  explains  and  declares  the 
latter.  This  is  the  day  for  reunion,  when  heart  clasps 
heart;  the  day  when  we  have  time  and  impulse  to  be 
kind,  the  day  when  we  forget  and  forgive,  the  day 
when  brotherhood  is  recognised,  the  day  when  we 
come  nearest  to  breaking  down  that  unbreakable  par- 
tition which  is  ever  between  soul  and  soul.  This  is 
the  day  when  we  recognise  in  the  very  pathos  of 
things  the  nearness  of  God.  While  humanity  is  what 
it  is,  this  festival  must  hold  its  place,  associated  with 
the  name  that  is  above  every  name.  But  why  the 
name  of  Jesus?  There  have  been  other  names  in  his- 
tory. Caesar,  Charlemagne,  Hildebrand — why  do  you 
not  keep  the  birthday  of  these?  Few,  if  any  of  you, 
know  when  it  is,  and  you  do  not  care.  Yet  the  first 
descendant  of  the  Caesar  sat  upon  the  throne  in  Impe- 
rial Rome  when  Jesus  was  laid  in  the  lowly  cattle-shed. 
It  matters  little  to-day  about  Caesar,  but  it  matters  so 
much  about  Christ  that  in  temples  all  over  the  land 
congregations  come  together  to  sing  praises  to  His 
name.  Why  not  Charlemagne?  That  great  king  and 
emperor  was  crowned,  I  think,  on  Christmas  Day, 
800,  in  St.  Peter's,  at  Rome,  and  history  took  a  new 
start  from  the  event.  What  would  it  matter  to  you 
had  he  never  been  crowned  at  all?     We  sing  to-day: 


THE    DAYSPRING  217 

"  All  hail  the  power  of  Jesu's  name, 
Let  angels  prostrate  fall  ; 
Bring  forth  the  royal  diadem, 
And  crown  Him  Lord  of  all." 

Born  in  a  stable,  cradled  in  a  manger,  yet  King  of 
kings  and  Lord  of  lords;  it  is  the  birthday  of  the 
Prince  of  Peace  that  is  precious  to  us,  and  not  the 
crowning  day  of  Charlemagne.  Why  not  Hildebrand? 
Here  was  one  who  claimed  to  be  lord  of  the  visible 
universe,  reigning  in  the  name  of  Christ,  master  of 
emperors,  king  of  kings,  the  vicar  of  God,  the  author 
of  the  most  magnificent  failure  in  history.  On  a  cer- 
tain wonderful  day  I  see  Hildebrand,  Pope  and  prince, 
sitting  in  his  castle  at  Canosa,  and  outside  the  gate, 
standing  in  the  snow,  is  the  Emperor  himself,  suing 
for  mercy  at  the  feet  of  the  vicar  of  Christ.  Day  after 
day  there  he  stands,  day  after  day  there  sits  Hilde- 
brand, magnificent  in  his  ecclesiastical  authority  and 
power,  ruling  in  the  name  of  Jesus.  Where  has  that 
pretension  gone  to?  We  do  not  want  it  to-day.  We 
would  not  have  it  to-day;  no  Pope,  no  Archbishop,  no 
temporal  dominion  of  the  Church  of  Christ  can  claim 
authority  over  the  minds  and  consciences  and  inde- 
pendence of  men  to-day.  But  as  the  power  of  the 
organised  Church  has  crumbled  into  nothing  the  au- 
thority of  Jesus  has  been  like  a  rising  sun.  Higher 
than  ever  He  stands  to-day  in  the  esteem  of  humanity, 
the  festival  of  His  birth  the  sweetest  Sabbath  of  the 
Church.  There  is  an  ideal  greater  than  the  failure  of 
Hildebrand — the  ideal  of  the  kingdom  of  God  which 
Cometh  not  with  observation,  preached  by  the  lowly 
Jesus  who  had  hot  where  to  lay  His  head. 

Jesus  has  brought  to  light  truths  the  world  does 


218      CITY    TEMPLE    SERMONS 

not  take  sufficient  account  of,  but  which  it  will  never 
let  go,  and  of  these  the  first  is  the  nearer  vision  of 
God.  It  comes  so  natural  to  us  to  say:  "Abba, 
Father!  "  Where  did  you  learn  that  word  for  God? 
"  Oh,  the  fishermen  heard  it  from  the  lips  of  Jesus. 
But  perhaps  somebody  else  said  it  before."  Ah,  very 
likely,  but  it  made  all  the  difference  when  Jesus  said 
it.  When  we  say,  "  Father  "  we  think  of  the  Son, 
and  when  men  have  looked  into  the  heart  of  Christ  and 
learned  there,  they  have  said  to  themselves.  What 
must  the  Father  be?  "  Lord,  shew  us  the  Father  and 
we  shall  be  satisfied."  "  Have  I  been  so  long-  time  with 
you,  and  yet  hast  thou  not  known  Me?  "  Through 
that  glorified  sonship  we  read  the  Fatherhood  divine. 
God  has  come  near.  The  pain  of  humanity  remains, 
the  discipline  of  life  continues  still,  the  shadow  has  not 
lifted,  but  the  light  is  shining  upon  it;  Christ  did  not 
abolish  pain,  but  He  brought  God  into  it,  and  on 
Christmas  Day  some  of  us  are  able  to  affirm : 

"  Labour  is  rest  and  pain  is  sweet 
If  Thou,  my  God,  art  near," 

He  has  given  us  another  hope;  life  is  bigger,  the  hori- 
zon is  wider,  we  are  looking  beyond,  and  "  the  best 
is  yet  to  be."  God  has  laid  Himself  alongside  every 
human  experience.  Christ  might  have  come  otherwise 
— on  the  clouds  of  heaven,  to  the  sound  of  the  trumpet, 
with  glory,  pomp,  and  power;  but  He  did  not.  He  was 
born  in  a  stable,  and  cradled  in  a  manger,  and  some- 
how the  instinct  of  humanity  affirms  that  was  the  way 
that  God  should  come.  In  the  meek  and  lowly  Jesus, 
in  the  humble  love  of  that  self-manifestation,  we  have 


THE    DAY  SPRING  219 

the  ultimate,  the  last  revelation  of  the  heart  of  God. 
There  is  nothing  more  that  you  need  to  know.  Jesus 
brought  to  us  a  new  humanity.  Unconsciously  we 
have  been  shaping  our  ideals  since  we  began  to  think 
— young  men  are  unconsciously  or  sub-consciously 
looking  to  this  man  and  that,  to  this  type  of  character 
and  the  other,  wherewith  to  shape  theirs — and  we 
think  with  justice  of  the  strong  men  who  have  stood 
in  the  past  for  the  right,  the  good,  and  the  true.  Be- 
yond, behind,  above,  humanity  had  been  looking  wist- 
fully, gladly,  toward  the  type  which  is  higher,  the  Man 
of  men,  the  norm  of  what  humanity  ought  to  be. 
When  we  see  a  good  man  and  love  a  good  man, 
we  mentally  measure  him  against  the  stature  of 
Christ ;  is  he  like  Him  ?  then  he  is  good ;  how  near 
does  he  come  to  Him  ?  That  is  the  measure  of  good- 
ness. 

How  the  ideal  of  the  Christ  has  entered  into  every 
department  of  human  interest  and  activity!  I  need 
hardly  tell  you  who  is  Tennyson's  Christ — it  is  King 
Arthur.  Christ  the  King  looks  out  from  these  pages. 
The  sublimest  scene,  incident,  or  passage  in  "  The 
Idylls  of  the  King  "  is  the  parting  of  Arthur  from  his 
sinful,  shame-stricken  queen.  There  she  lies,  grovel- 
ling at  his  feet,  beautiful  still,  quivering  with  the  shame 
of  her  degraded  womanhood,  not  daring  to  look  up 
into  his  kingly  face.  Here  beside  her,  bending  over, 
stands  Arthur,  the  prince  without  fear  and  without  re- 
proach, and  he  stoops  and  blesses  her,  as  he  parts, 
with  the  prophecy  that  they  two  shall  meet  before  high 
God,  and  claim  each  other  for  their  own.  As  he  passes 
from  her  presence  Guinevere  raises  her  head,  and  sobs 
out  in  passionate  utterance: 


220     CITY   TEMPLE    SERMONS 

"  Gone — my  lord  ! 
Gone  thro'  my  sin  to  slay  and  to  be  slain  ! 
And  he  forgave  me.  and  I  could  not  speak. 
Farewell?     I  should  have  answer'd  his  farewell. 
His  mercy  choked  me.     Gone,  my  lord  the  King, 
My  own  true  lord  !  how  dare  I  call  him  mine  ? 
The  shadow  of  another  cleaves  to  me, 
And  makes  me  one  pollution  :  he,  the  King, 
Call'd  me  polluted  ;  shall  I  kill  myself? 
What  help  in  that?    I  cannot  kill  my  sin, 
If  soul  be  soul ;  nor  can  I  kill  my  shame  ; 
No,  nor  by  living  can  I  live  it  down. 

I  must  not  dwell  on  that  defeat  of  fame. 
Let  the  world  be  ;  that  is  but  of  the  world. 
What  else  ?  what  hope  ?     I  think  there  was  a  hope. 
Except  he  mock'd  me  when  he  spake  of  hope. 

Blessed  be  the  King,  who  hath  forgiven 
My  wickedness  to  him,  and  let  me  hope 
That  in  mine  own  heart  I  can  live  down  sin 
And  be  his  mate  hereafter  in  the  heavens 
Before  high  God. 

It  was  my  duty  to  have  loved  the  highest ; 
It  surely  was  my  profit  had  I  known  ; 
It  would  have  been  my  pleasure  had  I  seen. 
We  needs  must  love  the  highest  when  we  see  it, 
Not  Lancelot,  nor  another." 

Tennyson's  Christ,  Christ  the  King;  Tennyson's  gos- 
pel, the  gospel  of  pardon;  Tennyson's  future,  the  future 
hope.  Where  did  he  get  it?  He  never  created  it,  he 
only  saw  it  in  the  Jesus  of  Galilee,  who,  before  His 
judges,  spake :  "  Thou  sayest  it  because  I  am  a  king." 
There  is  to  me  a  sweeter  vision  than  this.  Charles 
Dickens  has  a  Christ.  Dickens  had  a  favourite  book; 
his  favourite  child,  he  said,  was  David  Copperfield,  and 
his  Christ  is  Peggotty,  the  fisherman.     There  is  a  con- 


THE    DAY  SPRING  221 

trast  and  a  similiarity  here.  Arthur  and  Peggotty,  at 
the  two  extremes  of  the  social  scale,  are  one  and  the 
same,  and  their  norm  is  Christ.  The  sublimest  scene, 
the  tenderest  passage  in  this  book,  is  Peggotty's  re- 
covery of  his  little  Em'ly.  He  tells  the  story  himself, 
in  his  quaint,  colloquial  English,  the  first  night  after 
Em'ly  comes  home,  or,  rather,  the  first  night  after  he 
had  found  her  and  brought  her  back : 

All  night  long  we  have  been  together,  Em'ly  and  me.  'Tis 
little  (considering  the  time)  as  she  has  said,  in  wureds, 
through  them  broken-hearted  tears  ;  'tis  less  as  I  have  seen 
of  her  dear  face,  as  grow'd  into  a  woman's  at  my  hearth. 
But,  all  night  long,  her  arms  has  been  about  my  neck  ;  and 
her  head  was  laid  heer  ;  and  we  knows  full  well,  as  we  can 
put  our  trust  in  one  another  ever  more. 

The  tender  presentment  of  Christ,  the  fisherman — 
where  did  he  get  it?  Even  that  great  literary  genius 
did  not  create  it,  he  saw  it.  Peggotty  is  Christ,  the 
Christ  of  Galilee,  who  said:  "  Go  in  peace  and  sin  no 
more." 

Many  who  are  thinking  of  the  Christ,  and  the  re- 
de-mption,  the  love,  and  the  power  of  Christ,  both  to 
save  and  to  keep,  must  be  turning  to  Him  as  the  one 
central  hope  for  our  every  need.  But  there  are  some 
who  cannot  worship  Him  joyfully  on  this  Christmas 
Day.  You  are  thinking  of  that  height  from  which 
you  fell,  of  that  opportunity  that  you  once  let  go,  and 
which  will  come  no  more  for  ever ;  you  are  thinking  of 
the  manhood  you  have  destroyed,  the  womanhood 
you  have  polluted,  and  you  are  looking  up  to  the  dark- 
some eternal,  and  asking  if  the  mystery  has  any  word 
for  you.  It  has — Arthur's  word,  Peggotty's  word, 
Jesus'  word.     For  the  high  and  the  low  there  is  but 


222      CITY    TEMPLE    SERMONS 

one  Christ,  the  Christ  in  whom  Christians  believe,  the 
Dayspring  from  on  high,  to  give  Hght  to  them  that  sit 
in  darkness  and  the  shadow  of  death,  to  guide  our  feet 
into  the  way  of  peace. 

Some  of  you  find  it  difficult  to  be  glad.  You  re- 
member a  life  that  once  was  and  never  again  will  be 
here;  you  are  thinking  of  those  who  made  life  for  you, 
but  who  have  gone  into  the  darkness  of  that  myste- 
rious future,  by  that  lonely  road  which  we  must  all 
tread;  and  now  the  world  is  shadowed.  Will  it  ever 
be  the  same  again?  Have  we  time  to  be  glad?  is  it 
fitting  that  we  should?  You  are  thinking  maybe  of 
that  burden  of  yesterday  which  you  laid  down  at  the 
door  of  this  church,  going  in  for  a  few  brief  moments 
to  think  about  the  things  that  are  not  seen;  but  you 
know  you  are  going  to  take  it  up  to-morrow,  and  as 
you  think  of  your  loneliness  and  helplessness,  you  are 
tempted  to  say :  How  can  I  be  glad  about  Christ  ? 

"  We  spake  of  many  a  vanished  scene, 

Of  what  we  once  had  thought,  and  said, 
Of  what  had  been,  and  might  have  been. 

And  who  was  changed,  and  who  was  dead. 
And  all  that  fills  the  hearts  of  friends 

When  first  they  feel,  with  secret  pain, 
Their  lives  henceforth  have  separate  ends, 

And  never  can  be  one  again." 

The  Lord  of  life  and  death,  the  Babe  of  Bethlehem, 
is  Conqueror.  That  tiny  hand  has  shown  itself  able 
to  comfort  and  to  heal  many  a  broken  heart,  and  it 
holds  the  sceptre  of  the  world;  and  the  best  is  waiting 
for  you.  Live  for  the  highest,  the  only  thing  worth 
living  for;  follow  the  Crucified,  though  it  be  to  Cal- 
vary.    Some  of  you  are  willing  to  take  your  stand  be- 


THEDAYSPRING  223 

side  the  cradle,  but  not  in  Gethsemane.  You  must 
follow  Him  all  the  way,  for  on  the  farther  side  there  is 
the  fulfilment  of  everything  that  is  best  for  you  by  the 
Saviour  who  has  gone  to  prepare  the  place.  Oh,  the 
dayspring  from  on  high  is  shining  and  shall  shine  more 
and  more  until  the  perfect  day. 


XIX 
GOD'S    NEW   YEAR 

There  was  no  more  sea. — Rev.  xxi.  i. 

IN  Greek  thought  and  in  Hebrew  religion  the  sea 
was  the  emblem  of  mystery.  This  book  of  Revela- 
tion was  written  by  a  man  who  was  familiar  with 
Greek  thought,  as  the  prologue  to  the  Fourth  Gospel 
shows.  Yet  he  was  himself  a  Hebrew,  and  wrote 
about  a  religion  which,  though  it  was  destined  to  be 
universal,  had  its  beginnings  at  Jerusalem.  Perhaps 
the  use  in  Israelitish  song  of  the  sea  as  a  symbol  of  mys- 
tery and  dread  had  its  origin  as  far  back  as  that  in- 
stance which  we  read  for  our  lesson — "  The  Lord,  with 
a  strong  hand,  led  His  chosen  people  to  deliverance 
through  the  midst  of  the  sea."  Compare,  for  instance, 
with  our  text  the  language  of  Psalm  Ixxvii.,  which  is 
evidently  inspired  by  the  gratitude  felt  by  Israel  for 
that  great  historic  salvation.  "  Thy  way  is  in  the  sea, 
and  Thy  path  in  the  great  waters,  and  Thy  footsteps 
are  not  known.  Thou  leddest  Thy  people  like  a  flock 
by  the  hand  of  Moses  and  Aaron."  Compare  that 
piece  of  poetry  with  the  well-known  lines  of  our  Eng- 
lish poet,  William  Cowper: 

"  God  moves  in  a  mysterious  way 
His  wonders  to  perform, 
He  plants  His  footsteps  in  the  sea, 
And  rides  upon  the  storm." 
234 


GOD'S    NEWYEAR  225 

The  seer  of  Patmos  had  some  such  feeling  as  this  in 
his  heart,  and  takes  a  far  outlook  with  wide  and  glori- 
ous vision,  when  he  sees  the  coming  end  even  of  the 
mystery,  when  there  shall  be  no  need  for  the  symbol — 
"  I  saw  a  new  heaven  and  a  new  earth,  for  the  first 
heaven  and  the  first  earth  were  passed  away,  and  there 
was  no  more  sea." 

We  all  feel  life  to  be  a  mystery;  we  cannot  help  it, 
and  the  older  we  grow  the  deeper  does  the  mystery 
become.  Your  little  child  can  ask  you — perhaps  has 
asked  you — questions  that  the  wisest  of  men  cannot 
answer.     Christina  Rossetti  sings: 

"  The  mystery  of  life,  the  mystery 
Of  death  I  see 
Darkly,  as  in  a  glass  ;  their  shadows  pass 
And  talk  with  me." 

Was  it  not  Charles  Dickens  who  wrote,  "  This  world 
is  a  world  of  sacred  and  solemn  mystery;  let  no  man 
despise  it  or  take  it  lightly  "  ?  Our  life — the  life  of 
any  man — is  but  a  moment  between  two  eternities — 
that  which  has  been  and  that  which  is  to  come.  Life 
begins,  continues,  and  ends  in  mystery.  I  have  often 
heard  a  man  say — so  doubtless  have  you — "  I  wish  one 
could  see  any  meaning  in  it  all;  life  is  a  mystery  to 
which  there  is  no  solution."  I  have  heard  many  men 
say,  "  We  give  up  trying  to  find  any  solution ;  do  your 
duty  in  the  day.  Do  not  seek  to  probe  into  what  may 
have  no  meaning.  Life  is  a  mystery,  and  we  cannot 
find  the  key."  Just  now  that  is  the  fashionable  atti- 
tude and  the  so-called  reasonable  thing  to  say — 
"  Don't  speculate,  be  practical ;  life  is  a  mystery.  Live 
as  you  can  in  the  fleeting  moment,  doing  bravely  what 


226      CITY    TEMPLE    SERMONS 

is  in  you  to  do."  There  are  worse  creeds  than  that, 
but  few  of  us  can  remain  in  that  condition  of  sus- 
pended judgment.  We  want  a  key  for  the  door;  we 
want  to  know  what  is  on  the  other  side,  that  we  may 
understand  something  of  the  meaning  of  our  own  hfe. 
The  mystery  presents  itself  in  myriad  forms.  Let 
me  just  say  briefly  how  it  has  come  to  some  of  you 
during  the  past  year.  Here  is  one  person  into  whose 
experience  death  came  for  the  first  time  last  year.  It 
is  very  remarkable,  but  none  of  us  feel  that  death  has 
anything  to  do  with  us  until  it  actually  comes.  We 
hear  about  visitations  in  other  families,  and  are 
sorry  for  the  sufferers,  but  we  feel  that  Death  is  a 
stranger  that  has  nothing  to  do  with  our  home  circle. 
We  do  not  like  to  think  of  his  possible  advent,  nor  can 
we  picture  to  ourselves  what  life  would  be  like  if  Death 
really  came.  Well,  here  is  one  to  whose  home  Death 
did  come  last  year  and  took  away  the  very  person 
whom  you  could  least  afford  to  spare,  and  that  is  a 
thing  he  often  does.  Before  that  blow  fell  you  thought 
you  would  be  sure  to  go  first,  but  it  was  not  so;  and 
you  have  not  been  able  to  see  anything  kind  in  that 
call  of  the  grim  spectre.  You  remember  how  you  felt 
the  next  morning;  you  had  to  go  to  the  great  city  to 
work,  and  when  you  heard  men  talking  as  if  nothing 
had  happened,  and  when  you  saw  them  busy  here  and 
there  labouring  for  the  meat  which  perisheth,  you 
could  not  help  stopping  to  ask  yourself,  "  Is  it  not  all 
a  dream  ?  What  a  weird  mockery  is  this !  The  real 
to  me  was  that  something  which  is  lying  cold  and 
still  in  what  was  once  my  home."  You  have  managed 
to  right  yourself  a  little  since,  but  you  look  forward  on 
the  new  year  in  a  very  different  mood  from  that  in 


GOD'S    NEWYEAR  227 

which  you  faced  the  old.  Because  of  that  visit  of 
death  life  is  to  you  a  deeper  mystery  than  it  was  before. 

Then  here  is  a  man  who  last  year  went  through  the 
greatest  sorrow  of  his  life;  in  fact,  experienced  the 
complete  overthrow  of  that  for  which  he  had  lived. 
You  know  what  I  mean,  maybe.  You  had  pinned  all 
your  hopes  to  the  future  of  that  life,  for  whom  you 
toiled,  sacrificed,  suffered,  and  counted  the  sacrifice 
not  dear.  Now  where  is  he — dead?  Better  if  he 
were!  Perhaps  you  are  so  much  in  a  sadder  position 
than  he  whom  I  have  just  instanced  that  you  will  say 
it  would  be  good  news  if  you  could  know  that  that  boy 
of  yours  was  in  his  coffin,  rather  than  where  he  is  and 
what  he  is.  You  can't  help  saying  to  yourself,  as  you 
sit  among  people  who  pray,  and  perhaps  you  don't 
pray,  "To  what  purpose  was  this  waste?  If  there  be 
any  meaning  in  life  at  all,  why  is  it  that  my  life, 
which  was  not  selfishly  lived,  appears  to  have  been 
lived  only  for  torture?  My  boy  has  failed  me."  Yet 
you  would  be  crucified  to  save  him  if  you  could.  "  Oh, 
Absalom,  my  son,  my  son,  would  God  I  had  died  for 
thee ! " 

Here  is  another — how  different  an  experience  is  his! 
He  sits  in  a  corner  of  a  pew,  solitary,  unnoticed ;  the 
frost  of  age  is  on  his  hair.  He  makes  no  complaint, 
there  is  no  eagerness  in  his  outlook,  no  protest  in  his 
prayer.  He  is  patient,  resigned,  still.  Ah,  young 
man,  you  would  never  dream  that  that  old  man  once 
had  as  much  spring  in  his  step  as  you  have  in  yours, 
and  as  much  hope  in  his  heart  as  you  cherish  for  the 
opening  year.  Once  he  felt  as  you  do,  in  the  pride  of 
your  youth — and  vou  are  right  to  do  it — that  you  are 
going  to  conquer  life  and  wrest  the  golden  secret  out 


228     CITY    TEMPLE    SERMONS 

of  fate.  He  thought  all  that;  his  experience  was  hope 
deferred,  and  now  it  is  hope  gone.  He  knows  what 
fate  has  to  give  him ;  it  is  to  be  a  hewer  of  wood,  a 
drawer  of  water  to  other  people  all  the  days  of  his  life. 
Yet  he  feels  that  he  has  not  lived  out,  and  never  had 
the  chances  to  live  out,  what  there  was  in  him  to  be 
and  to  do.  It  is  a  mystery,  is  it  not,  that  he  never 
could  and  never  shall?  Here  is  a  man  who  has  only 
a  little  corner  of  his  life  (does  any  man  live  any 
more?);  life  has  been  an  illusion,  a  disappointment, 
and  as  he  draws  near  to  the  dark  river  he  says  to  him- 
self, "  A  mystery,  a  mystery !  I  am  no  nearer  to  the 
meaning  than  I  was  at  first." 

Here  are  all  these  stories  of  struggle,  poverty, 
shame,  and  sin.  What  is  that  strong  man  who  is 
conscious  of  a  weak  will  and  mighty  passion,  and  who 
says  to  God,  "  Strange  that  You  have  made  me  so  that 
I  so  easily  do  evil  and  so  hardly  do  good!  I  am  not 
master  of  myself.  If  You  had  made  me  as  passion- 
ately earnest  to  pray  as  I  am  passionately  earnest  to 
gratify  the  flesh,  life  would  have  been  very  different 
for  me  to-day.  Where  is  the  good  of  making  resolu- 
tions when  I  know  the  history  of  the  past  year? " 
Mystery!  Surely  God's  ways  are  in  the  sea,  in  that 
any  of  these  stories  can  be  told  at  all. 

The  pain  of  life  is  just  in  the  mystery.  If  we  knew, 
there  would  not  be  any  pain.  It  is  that  we  do  not 
know,  as  we  look  forward  upon  the  undiscovered 
future,  and  strain  our  eyes  with  peering  into  the 
gloom  trying  to  see  what  is  to  be,  that  the  pain  comes. 
Hence  it  is  that  some  of  you,  standing  on  the  thresh- 
old of  another  year,  view  it  with  a  certain  misgiving. 
What  has  this  coming  year  in  store?    Mystery! 


I 


GOD'S    NEWYEAR  229 

Suffer  me  to  say  that  there  is  a  value  in  mystery, 
and  that  I  will  make  you  see  it.  Listen  to  this  mother 
training  her  little  boy.  "  Tell  the  truth,"  she  says. 
"  Be  sure  you  tell  the  truth ;  now  tell  me  the  truth 
and  I  will  give  you  this  toy."  He  looks  at  his  mother, 
then  at  the  toy,  and  when  he  has  gazed  on  the  latter,, 
the  truth  is  told.  What  do  you  think  of  the  moral 
effect  of  the  lesson?  Here  is  another  lesson:  listen 
to  this  father.  He  stands  face  to  face  with  a  similar 
culprit;  he  loves  him  quite  as  much.  "  My  lad,  you 
be  a  man;  tell  the  truth  and  shame  the  devil.  Did 
you  do  this,  or  didn't  you?"  The  boy  looks  up  at 
his  father,  something  of  the  same  spirit  comes  to  him, 
and  he  says,  "  I  did."  Which  was  the  better  lesson  ? 
That  which  was  given  without  the  toy.  The  one 
knew  the  reward  of  the  truth-telling  and  the  other 
did  not.  There  was  a  certain  value  in  the  mystery. 
Men  are  but  children  of  a  larger  growth. 

Here  is  another  story,  which  is  not  fancy.  There 
is  a  man  in  my  church  who  said: 

"  The  memory  of  my  father  is  a  sacred  influence 
to  me ;  yet  I  can  remember  the  day  when  I  was  hungry 
because  of  my  father's  conduct,  and  I  could  not  under- 
stand it.  I  can  remember  my  mother  crying  as  she 
cut  the  last  loaf,  keeping  none  for  herself,  and  gave 
to  us  what  there  was.  My  father  had  been  turned 
from  his  business  rather  than  do  a  mean  and  shabby 
thing.  They  gave  him  three  days  to  think  of  it,  and 
then  he  came  home  with  no  prospects  and  no  money. 
I  remember  my  mother  taking  the  two  eldest  of  us  to 
one  side,  and  saying,  '  It  breaks  my  heart  to  see  you 
hungry,  but  I  will  tell  you  what  kind  of  a  man  your 
father  is  ' ;  and  she  told  us.     Many  a  time  since  I  have 


230     CITY    TEMPLE    SERMONS 

been  tempted  to  do  wrong,  and  there  rose  before  me 
the  figure  of  the  man  who  dared  even  to  see  his  chil- 
dren suffer  before  he  could  sully  his  conscience  and 
sin  against  God." 

Supposing  somebody  had  come  to  that  father  on 
the  morning  of  his  heroism  and  had  said,  "  I  will 
stand  by  you  if  you  will  do  the  brave  thing  now," 
where  would  the  heroism  have  been?  The  heroism 
was  in  that  he  did  not  know  what  would  come;  he 
could  not  see  the  future.  He  only  knew  and  he  only 
did  the  right.  Character  is  formed  by  knowing,  and 
by  not  knowing.  Everything  noble  in  you,  if  there 
is  any,  is  formed  by  knowing  and  by  not  knowing — 
knowing  what  is  right,  not  knowing  whether  it  will 
pay;  knowing  what  you  ought  to  do,  not  knowing 
what  you  have  to  suffer  for  it. 

"  Because  right  is  right,  to  follow  right 
Were  wisdom  in  the  scorn  of  consequence." 

Thank  God  for  what  He  has  hidden  from  us,  for 
things  that  are  given  in  mystery;  thank  God  for  that 
feeling  which  we  have,  that  instinct,  which  is  along- 
side conscience,  that  on  the  other  side  of  the  mystery 
the  right  is  reigning, 

"  Right  is  right  since  God  is  right, 
And  right  the  day  must  win. 
To  doubt  would  be  disloyalty, 
To  falter  would  be  sin." 

It  is  not  all  mystery — no  mystery  ever  is.  Every 
man  knows  two  things,  or  might  if  he  would — duty, 
blessing.  Through  all  mankind,  said  a  Pagan  thinker, 
conscience  is  God,  and  the  judgment  of  each  man 
will     be     according    to    how     he     listened    to    the 


GOD'SNEWYEAR  231 

voice.  You  are  never  in  any  doubt  about  it; 
it  speaks.  You  do  not  need  a  preacher  to  tell 
you  what  to  do  to-day;  you  know  God  has  spoken. 
God  ever  speaks  to  those  who  have  ears  to  hear,  and 
He  has  spoken  to  you.  It  is  a  marvellous  and  beauti- 
ful thing  that  the  same  still,  small  voice,  which  comes 
as  the  categorical  imperative,  saying,  "  You  must," 
says,  when  the  right  is  done,  "  Well  done,  good  and 
faithful  servant!  "  You  do  not  wait  for  the  judgment 
day  for  the  Master's  "  Well  done."  There  is  all  the 
world  of  difference  between  the  man  who  has  suf- 
fered, being  guilty,  and  the  man  who  would  suffer 
because  it  was  right. 

There  is  a  value  in  the  mystery,  the  value  which 
makes  heroism.  The  world  does  not  want  to  be  with- 
out that.  Hear  Savonarola,  the  great  Florentine 
prophet,  going  to  his  death,  as  prophets  often  have 
to  do,  at  the  hands  of  those  he  had  served  and  loved. 
George  Eliot  makes  him  say,  "  I  count  it  nothing. 
Darkness  encompassed  me,  yet  the  light  I  saw  was 
the  true  light."  There  is  an  end  to  mystery,  a  golden 
day,  and  we  shall  carry  into  it  that  which  mystery  has 
given  us  here.  When  the  day  of  joy  comes  you  will 
see  that  your  joy  depended  upon  your  pain.  Every 
tone  in  the  organ  which  is  rich  and  beautiful  is  only 
rich  because  it  contains  a  myriad  discords.  When 
you  hear  a  tone  which  you  say  is  dull,  although  it 
happens  to  be  the  same  note  as  the  tone  which  you 
say  is  rich,  you  may  not  know  what  is  the  matter. 
It  is  because  there  are  no  discords  in  it;  but  you  do 
not  hear  the  discords;  you  are  not  thinking  of  them. 
Just  so.  The  highest  joy  is  that  in  which  pain  is 
latent,  forgotten;  but  it  has  been  there.     When  you 


232      CITY    TEMPLE    SERMONS 

hear  a  dissonance  in  a  harmony  you  are  instantly  on 
the  alert;  the  discord  makes  you  wait;  you  wait  for 
the  cadence.  When  you  feel  pain  in  this  world  any- 
where, although  you  know  you  have  lived  nobly  and 
right  up  to  your  lights,  you  just  wait.  Something 
within  tells  you  the  cadence  is  coming,  sometimes  on 
this  side  of  death,  sometimes  on  the  other;  but  it  will 
come,  when  the  shadows  have  departed  and  the  mists 
have  rolled  away. 

We  are  meant  to  see — God  means  every  man  to 
see — the  whole  scheme  from  the  beginning,  the  mean- 
ing of  your  life,  and  He  lets  you  see  some  of  it  even 
now.  You  do  not  walk  in  thick  darkness  all  the  time. 
Look  back  over  the  past  year,  yes,  and  far  beyond 
that.  What  do  you  see?  Goodness  and  mercy  have 
followed  you  all  the  days  of  your  life.  When  you 
went  wrong,  pain  brought  you  back;  when  you  did 
right  and  it  seemed  as  if  everything  were  wrong,  it 
was  only  that  you  were  wrong  in  your  judgment. 
Now  you  see  that  things  that  were  veiled  in  thick 
darkness  were  right,  after  all,  so  much  so  that  the 
very  last  thing  you  wanted  has  come  to  be  the  thing 
you  would  choose  if  your  time  came  over  again.  How 
often  it  has  been  that  the  thing  you  prayed  might 
not  come  did  come,  but  the  thing  you  dreaded  in  it 
did  not  come!  God's  ways  were  in  the  sea;  you  went 
on  dry  land  through  the  midst  of  the  sea,  and,  look- 
ing back,  you  see  what  the  deliverance  was.  Now, 
looking  forward,  let  me  say  this.  You  have  nothing 
to  fear,  for  all  your  questions  are  answered  before- 
hand, if  you  know  Him  whom  to  know  is  life  eternal. 
We  know  not  what  awaits  us.  God  kindly  veils  our 
eyes,  but  we  know  Him  whom  we  have  believed,  and 


GOD'S    NEWYEAR  233 

are  persuaded  that  He  is  able  to  keep  that  which  we 
have  committed  unto  Him  against  that  day — the  day 
of  revelation,  when  the  secrets  of  all  hearts  shall  be 
revealed,  and,  though  many  ugly  things  will  come  to 
light,  many  beautiful  things  will  come  to  light  too. 
Some  of  you,  of  whom  the  world  never  hears,  that 
are  doing  your  best  in  your  obscure  corners,  will 
stand  out  then  to  shine  as  the  noonday  in  God's  new 
year.  God  is  speaking  to  you  even  now  in  your  time 
of  seeking  to  pierce  the  mystery.  It  may  be  that  we 
seek  too  much  and  ask  too  many  questions.  Fear  ye 
not,  stand  still,  and  see  the  salvation  of  the  Lord  which 
He  shall  show  to  you  to-day.  Do  you  remember  those 
lines  of  Wordsworth,  the  mystic  of  the  late  poets  ? 

"  Think  you  'mid  all  this  mighty  sum 

Of  things  for  ever  speaking 
That  nothing  of  itself  will  come, 

But  we  must  still  be  seeking  ? 
Nor  less  I  deem  that  there  are  powers, 

Which  of  themselves  our  minds  impress, 
And  we  can  feed  this  mind  of  ours, 

In  a  wise  passiveness." 

God's  speech  comes  to  the  soul  of  that  man  who, 
recognising  that  His  ways  are  in  the  sea,  thanks  Him 
for  what  He  has  not  shown,  and  says,  "  My  life  is  hid 
with  Christ  in  God." 


XX 
THE    MINOR    OFFENCE 

Whosoever  shall  keep  the  whole  law,  and  yet  offettd  in 
one  point,  he  is  guilty  of  all.— James  ii.  lo. 

IN  this,  at  first  sight,  somewhat  mysterious  sen- 
tence, there  is  a  profound  psychological  and  spirit- 
ual meaning.  The  truth  it  contains  is  one  which 
on  reflection  every  seriously-minded  man  will  affirm. 
Briefly  stated,  it  is  this.  Character  is  all  of  a  piece, 
woven  without  seam  throughout;  goodness  is  one 
thing,  with  many  manifestations,  each  one  of  which 
is  consistent  with  all  the  rest.  Every  Christian  virtue 
presumes  the  existence  of  every  other  in  its  possessor ; 
or,  rather,  there  is  but  one  virtue,  which  shows  itself 
in  various  lights,  and  exhibits  itself  in  diverse  atti- 
tudes. There  is  only  one  virtue,  whether  it  show 
itself  as  love,  generosity,  truthfulness,  firmness,  up- 
rightness, humility,  or  what  not;  and  the  absence  of 
any  one  so-called  Christian  virtue  means  that  the  rest 
are  vitiated — not  merely  that  the  whole  character  is 
incomplete,  but  every  single  virtue  is  incomplete  by 
the  absence  of  one. 

People  dearly  love  anomaly.  They  are  not  prepared 
to  commit  themselves  to  theories  until  they  are  sure 
they  will  work  in  practice;  and,  provided  a  faulty 
theory  does  work  fairly  well  in  practice,  we  are  pre- 
pared to  put  up  with  it.     These  peculiarities  of  our 

234 


THE    MINOR    OFFENCE         235 

moral  constitution  sometimes  expose  us  to  criticism, 
partly  or  wholly  deserved;  for  our  national  incon- 
sistencies, to  a  certain  extent,  are  the  impressive  ex- 
pression of  our  individual  inconsistencies  too.  A 
book  has  just  been  published  by  that  acute  observer 
of  men  and  things,  and  eminent  statesman,  Mr.  Bryce. 
He  calls  it  "  Studies  in  Contemporary  Biography," 
and  it  contains  sketches  of  eminent  men  and  their 
characteristics  as  known  at  close  quarters  to  Professor 
Bryce.  In  the  sketch  of  Lord  Beaconsfield  occurs 
this  paragraph : 

"  English  society  was  then,  and  perhaps  is  still,  more 
complex,  more  full  of  inconsistencies,  of  contrasts  be- 
tween theory  and  practice,  between  appearances  and 
realities,  than  that  of  any  other  country.  Nowhere 
so  much  limitation  of  view  among  the  fashionable,  so 
much  Pharisaism  among  the  respectable,  so  much 
vulgarity  among  the  rich,  mixed  with  so  much  real 
earnestness,  benevolence,  and  good  sense;  nowhere, 
therefore,  so  much  to  seem  merely  ridiculous  to  one 
who  looked  at  it  from  without,  wanting  the  sympathy 
which  comes  from  the  love  of  mankind,  or  even  from 
the  love  of  one's  country." 

That  is  a  very  acute  and  searching  criticism. 
Nearly  everybody  would  confess  it  to  be  true.  Just 
as  it  is  true  in  the  large  of  English  character  as  a 
whole,  so  I  believe  it  is  true  in  the  minor  world  of 
individuals,  and  even  of  professedly  Christian  char- 
acter. I  would  not  exempt  religious  men  from  the 
sweeping  statements  here  made.  We  are  composed 
of  contradictions,  our  religions  life  bristles  with  them, 
and  we  sometimes  forget  that  Christianity  is  not  a 
code  nor  a  set  or  rules;  it  is  a  spirit  and  a  life.    When 


236      CITY    TEMPLE    SERMONS 

a  man  has  the  right  spirit,  character  can  almost  be 
left  to  take  care  of  itself,  and  when  he  has  not  the 
right  spirit,  he  may  call  himself  religious,  but  you 
will  find  that  his  character  is  inharmonious,  warring 
against  itself,  and  while  he  forgets  the  perfect  obedi- 
ence to  the  Master  in  one  point,  he  has  omitted  to  see 
that  he  has  vitiated  character  all  through. 

I  am  impressed  by  certain  things  which  as  a  sym- 
pathetic observer  I  cannot  but  see  and  regret  in  my 
acquaintance  with  men.  One  of  these  is  the  vast 
amount  of  unnecessary  unhappiness  which  exists 
amongst  professedly  Christian  people  and  in  profess- 
edly Christian  homes.  You  would  get  excited  in  five 
minutes  if  instead  of  talking  in  this  way  to  you  som.e- 
one  were  to  begin  tO'  speak  about  the  income-tax,  or 
the  education  question,  or  temperance  reform.  I  some- 
times think  we  shout  loudest  about  the  things  that  mat- 
ter least.  If  you  will  examine  it  you  will  find  that  your 
happiness  does  not  depend  primarily,  no,  not  perhaps 
even  secondarily,  on  the  right  solution  of  any  or  all 
of  these  questions  of  common  and  public  interest,  but 
rather  upon  the  solution  of  the  problems  about  little 
things  that  you  are  living  in  at  home.  The  home  is 
the  place  where  we  should  in  our  common  life  ap- 
proach nearest  to  God ;  not  the  church,  not  the  busi- 
ness mart,  with  its  discipline,  its  necessary  school,  its 
lessons  that  will  have  value  in  eternity,  but  in  the 
home  we  meet  with  the  affinities  and  the  relation- 
ships which  are  in  some  sort  types  and  symbols  of 
eternal  realities.  In  the  home  we  come  closest  to  each 
other,  and  are  placed  in  each  other's  custody  in  such 
wise  that  surely  it  is  God-given  and  God-meant  for  the 
higher  training  of  the  individual  soul.     If  home  be 


I 


THE    MINOR    OFFENCE         237 

right,  men  and  brethren,  you  will  be  better  citizens; 
if  home  be  right,  the  Church  will  feel  the  influence  of 
it;  if  home  be  right,  our  corporate  life  will  not  want 
for  good  men  and  true;  and  if  home  be  wrong,  there 
is  something  wrong  with  our  religious  character  and 
our  religious  profession.  I  observe  that  it  is  in  the 
minor  things  that  most  of  the  unhappiness  is  caused 
which  is  so  common,  and  which  I  am  perfectly  sure 
exists  in  the  experience  of  those  who  are  listening  to  me 
now.  There  is,  for  example,  the  vice  of  a  dual  de- 
meanour, from  which  so  many  of  us  suffer.  The  City 
men  who  listen  to  me  take  no  end  of  trouble  to  be 
agreeable  to  those  with  whom  they  have  to  deal.  You 
may  say  it  is  nothing  more  than  would  be  expected 
from  one  man  in  a  civilised  country  in  his  relations 
with  another.  Let  us  examine  sympathetically  your 
behaviour  of  a  day.  A  perfect  stranger  whom  you 
never  saw  before  has  been  occupying  your  attention 
for  an  hour;  you  have  been  quoting  prices  to  him, 
and  trying  to  get  him  to  buy  from  you  this  or  that 
good  thing  of  which  you  have  to  dispose.  It  is  per- 
fectly wonderful  how  winsome  you  have  been  and 
mean  to  be,  and  with  hardly  any  trouble  consciously 
taken.  You  exhibit  yourself  in  a  favourable  light, 
you  try  to  study  your  man,  and  I  venture  to  suppose 
not  altogether  with  the  object  of  exploiting  him.  You 
are  prepared  to  consider  him  in  friendly  fashion,  and 
you  have  given  far  more  of  the  power  of  your  per- 
sonality for  that  man's  good  opinion  than  possibly 
you  are  aware.  If  he  goes  away,  having  bidden  you 
good-bye,  he  will  carry  kindly  memories  of  you;  you 
have  made  a  certain  impression  upon  him;  if  ever  he 
thinks  or  speaks  of  you  again  he  will  estimate  you 


238      CITY    TEMPLE    SERMONS 

according  to  that  impression.  From  his  point  of 
view,  what  he  thinks  of  you  is  you.  Now  we  will 
go  home  with  you.  Somehow  there  is  a  differenL 
man  here.  You  are  perfectly  unconscious  of  it,  may 
be,  but  as  you  take  ofif  your  hat  when  you  enter  the 
hall  your  whole  demeanour  undergoes  a  change.  You 
forget  the  winsomeness  that  was  necessary  when  you 
were  quoting  prices;  there  is  a  difference  in  your  atti- 
tude; you  don't  take  so  much  trouble  now  to  be 
genial.  If  anyone  were  to  ask  you  whether  you  had 
been  lacking  in  tenderness,  considerateness,  sym- 
pathy, insight,  at  home,  you  would  say,  "  No  " — ^but 
you  are.  Thank  God  it  is  not  universal,  but  it  is  suffi- 
ciently common  for  us  to  give  each  other  pause,  and 
ask  whether  any  professedly  Christian  man  ought 
ever  to  have  a  dual  demeanour;  the  same  demeanour 
which  you  have  to  the  stranger  ought  to  be  the  de- 
meanour which  you  wear  at  home.  If  you  have  a  bet- 
ter, if  you  have  a  higher  altitude  to  take,  take  it  with 
the  nearest  and  the  dearest,  rather  than  with  the  man 
you  casually  meet  upon  the  street.  If  you  do  not,  you 
are  losing  something,  and  experience  tells  you  that 
you  have  lost  much,  whether  you  ever  think  about 
it  or  not.  It  is  trifles  at  home  that  make  happiness 
or  unhappiness.  Great  tragedies  usually  begin  in 
little  things.  A  husband  and  a  wife  are  drifting 
apart;  each  of  them  knows  it,  neither  blames  himself 
or  herself.  It  is  little  things  that  cause  the  breach;  by- 
and-bye  the  great  scandal  comes  out,  and  the  whole 
community  knows;  but  there  may  have  been  a  lifetime 
of  agony  before  that,  which  surely  need  never  have 
been,  if  what  we  say  and  sing  in  the  house  of  God 
represented  the  very  truth  about  ourselves.     Our  first 


THE    MINOR    OFFENCE         239 

interest  and  solicitude  are  for  those  who  are  given  to 
our  stewardship,  and  God  makes  no  mistake.  What 
we  call  incompatibilities  often  are  simply  the  result  of  a 
subtle  selfishness,  which  in  keeping  the  letter  of  the 
law  forgets  the  minor  things,  which  brings  in  a  little 
selfhood  by  a  back  door.  People  may  be  close  to- 
gether at  the  fireside,  eat  at  the  same  table,  frequent 
the  same  scenes,  live  in  each  other's  company  day 
after  day,  and  be  as  far  apart  as  though  oceans  rolled 
between.  If  those  who  are  dearest  become  to  you 
commonplace  and  uninteresting,  there  is  something 
the  matter  with  your  vision,  'and  it  matters  little  how 
high  you  stand  in  the  religious  world,  what  eloquent 
sermons  you  may  preach,  how  much  good  you  may 
philanthropically  do,  if  these  who  are  committed  to 
your  charge  do  not  see  in  your  demeanour  the  good 
tidings  of  the  love  of  God. 

This,  again,  is  a  cause,  I  believe,  why  so  often  chil- 
dren of  good  men  go  wrong.  God  forbid  that  I  should 
say  it  is  always  the  reason;  often  there  is  no  telling 
why  a  good  man  has  a  bad  son,  but  yet  I  think 
it  is  more  frequently  apparently  than  really  inexpli- 
cable. 

Let  me  give  you  a  case  in  point.  A  young  man 
comes  into  the  vestry  (there  have  been  a  good  many 
of  them),  and  tells  me,  a  perfect  stranger,  a  story  of 
suffering  or  of  shadow  or  of  sin.  When  I  have  heard 
it,  I  ask  him  about  his  home.  Yes,  he  has  a  father 
and  a  mother.  "  Why  did  you  not  tell  your  father, 
then?"  "  Oh,  he  is  the  last  person  in  the  world  that 
I  would  tell!"  "Why?  Are  you  afraid  of  hurting 
him?"  "No,  it  is  not  that;  it  is  that  I  could  never 
get  near  enough  to  him  to  tell  him  such  a  thing  as 


240      CITY    TEMPLE    SERMONS 

this."  That  is  more  common  than  you  would  suppose, 
and  it  is  so  in  the  household  of  good  men.  The  minor 
offence  in  the  father's  nature  has  been  a  subtle  self- 
hood which  has  erected  a  barrier  between  himself  and 
his  boy.  When  the  boy  goes  wrong,  all  the  world 
pities  the  father;  but  the  father  might  have  avoided 
that  if  he  had  remembered  to  give  himself  in  sym- 
pathetic companionship  to  his  son.  Never  lose  the 
confidence  of  your  children;  you  never  need  to  lose  it. 
I  believe  that  most  lads  are  kept  right  rather  by  in- 
fluence than  by  precept.  Boys  who  are  living  in  the 
metropolis,  far  away  from  home,  will  bear  me  out  in 
saying  that  if  they  have  been  kept  from  the  house  of 
shame  is  has  probably  been  owing  to  the  influence  of 
some  good  mother,  who  has  never  spoken  a  word 
about,  and  perhaps  knows  not  of  the  existence  of, 
these  darksome  themes  of  ill.  If  the  influence  of  a 
sympathetic  parental  companionship  will  not  keep  a 
young  man  right,  I  know  no  influence  that  will. 

Observe,  again,  how  often  young  people  in  their 
turn,  conscious  of  religious  instincts,  desires,  and  aspi- 
rations, vitiate  them  all  by  a  kind  of  self-consciousness 
that  takes  no  account  of  what  it  really  is.  A  young 
person  comes  to  me  or  writes  me  a  letter  asking  for 
advice  upon  this  thing  or  that ;  very  often  it  turns  out 
to  be  a  question  concerning  some  fundamental  of  re- 
ligion. I  say,  "  Have  you  no  friend  with  whom  to  talk 
these  matters  over?"  "Oh,  no,  I  am  entirely  alone, 
nobody  at  home  understands  me;  I  am  often  craving 
for  sympathy  and  understanding,  but  I  don't  seem  to 
get  it."  It  is  true,  perhaps,  in  one  case  out  of  a  hun- 
dred, that  there  is  a  noble  lonely  soul  in  an  uncongenial 
environment  struggling  in  vain  against  spiritual  odds. 


THE    MINOR    OFFENCE  241 

but  the  chances  are  ninety-nine  out  of  the  hundred  that 
all  that  is  the  matter  with  that  young  man  is  a  morbid 
self-consciousness  and  an  over-estimate  of  his  own  im- 
portance. As  Sir  James  Paget  once  said  to  a  young 
man  who  wrote  to  him  for  professional  advice,  "  What- 
ever you  do,  don't  think  yourself  exceptional."  There 
is  no  readier  vitiater  of  youthful  promise  than  self-con- 
sciousness of  that  kind  which  has  but  itself  to  blame 
for  the  ills  of  which  it  complains.  Be  yourself  the 
strong  one  on  whom  the  weak  may  lean,  the  sym- 
pathetic friend  to  whom  your  friends  may  look;  stifle 
and  dismiss  your  complaints,  try  and  live  in  the  spirit 
of  the  One  who  had  a  heart  at  leisure  from  itself  to 
soothe  and  sympathise. 

O'bserve  in  all  these  regards  the  example  of  our 
blessed  Lord.  Nothing  is  more  striking  and  impres- 
sive to  me  in  the  Christian  Gospel  than  the  tender 
delicacy  of  the  Christ  combined  with  a  strength  which 
is  the  acme  of  human  manliness.  Our  Master  was 
tender  to  the  Magdalene,  to  the  woman  taken  in  adul- 
tery; scathing  in  his  denunciation  of  the  Pharisees 
who  would  have  condemned  them.  We  invert  the 
order  as  a  rule,  we  are  indulgent  to  the  Pharisee,  de- 
nunciatory of  the  Magdalene.  We  have  false  stand- 
ards concerning  the  importance  and  pre-eminence  of 
certain  virtues.  I  make  no  apology  for  the  Magda- 
lene ;  Christ  never  did  that.  He  never  condoned  or 
compromised  with  or  apologised  for  sin,  but  with  Him 
it  was  a  spirit  that  met  with  condemnation  rather  than 
an  act.  What  is  behind  the  conduct  of  a  man,  what 
makes  him  do  or  leave  undone?  was  the  question  the 
Master  would  have  asked.  With  all  His  tender  deli- 
cacy, gentleness,  and  insight.  He  could  be  absolutely 


242      CITY    TEMPLE    SERMONS 

irresistible  and  inflexible  in  His  denunciation  of 
wrong.  Keep  all  your  moral  indignation  if  you  like, 
provided  you  keep  with  it  the  tenderness  of  the  spirit 
of  the  Master;  and  remember  that  if  you  have  not  the 
spirit  of  Christ  you  are  none  of  His.  The  whole  of 
your  Christian  character  is  vitiated  in  its  heights  and 
depths,  its  lengths  and  breadths,  if  that  spirit  be  absent 
in  your  dealing  with  those  who  are  nearest  and  dearest. 
If  a  man  offends  in  one  point  he  is  guilty  of  all. 

I  am  impressed,  further,  by  the  way  in  which  this 
selfhood  of  which  I  have  spoken  operates  in  individual 
lives  within  or  without  the  home  circle,  in  self-pity, 
self-indulgence,  unholy  self-regard.  A  man  spends  a 
great  deal  of  time  frequently  in  thinking  of  himself. 
Self-consciousness,  even  when  it  seems  harmless,  is 
often  poisonous.  Self-contempt  even,  a  craven  sub- 
mission to  evil  without  or  within,  is  as  reprehensible  as 
self-pity  or  self-indulgence  in  any  other  form.  Men 
are  continually  crying  out,  "  All  is  lost !  "  Why,  all  is 
found  if  you  hdve  but  told  the  Lord  you  know  how 
much  is  lost. 

Further  still,  in  our  social  life  of  to-day,  I  am 
amazed  by  the  existence  of  two  contradictory  things — 
the  vast  amount  of  kindness  which  can  be  shown  and 
the  vast  amount  of  cruelty  that  can  be  exhibited  by  the 
very  same  man.  I  go  into  a  London  club,  and  listen 
to  men  talking;  it  is  pretty  nearly  always  true  that 
where  two  or  three  are  gathered  together  slander  is  in 
the  midst  of  them,  and  it  is  a  bad  time  for  somebody 
who  is  not  there.  Censoriousness  is  one  of  the  most 
hateful  of  vices,  and  usually  a  man  sees  sooner  the  de- 
fects in  another  man's  character  than  the  blemish  in 
his  own.     There  is  a  psychological  reason   for  that. 


I 


THE    MINOR    OFFENCE         243 

We  are  sometimes  told  that  spiteful  gossip  is  confined 
to  one  sex.  I  do  not  think  it  is,  and  I  will  venture  to 
say  that  the  most  malicious  gossips  I  have  known  were 
men.  In  point  of  fact,  envy,  hatred,  maHce,  and  all 
uncharitableness  exist  almost  unrebuked  in  the  char- 
acters of  many  otherwise  religious  people.  Even 
those  of  the  cloth  are  not  exempt.  The  thoughtless 
cruelty  of  the  statements  which  men  make  of  one  an- 
other, the  ills  that  they  wish,  the  ifs  and  the  buts  that 
they  suggest,  are  unworthy  of  a  Christian  profession. 
More  than  that,  remember,  censoriousness  has  no 
place  in  Christian  character.  Our  Lord's  warnings 
were  emphatic  upon  that  point.  "  Judge  not,  that  ye 
be  not  judged.  For  with  what  judgment  ye  judge  ye 
shall  be  judged,  and  with  what  measure  ye  mete,  it 
shall  be  measured  to  you  again."  Not  in  some  far- 
oiif  day,  but  now,  merciless  judgments  always  recoil 
upon  the  man  who  makes  them.  It  is  perfectly  cer- 
tain that  whilst  the  spirit  of  bitter  and  ungenerous 
criticism  is  in  any  man's  heart  the  love  of  Christ  is 
not  there,  and  it  is  equally  true  that  while  criticism  has 
its  place  and  must  have,  and  we  are  called  upon  to 
estimate  the  worth  of  a  man's  deeds,  we  do  not  belong 
to  the  Master  when  we  seek  to  penetrate  his  motives. 
Let  them  alone. 

Moreover,  a  very  severe  and  real  test  of  the  genuine- 
ness of  much  of  the  criticism  that  goes  on  amongst 
men  would  be  this:  Supposing  you  could  be  satisfied 
that  everything  you  pretend  to  deplore  in  another 
man's  conduct  was,  after  all,  a  mistake  in  your  infor- 
mation, and  that  you  had  been  entirely  wrong,  would 
your  first  instinct  be  rejoicing?  Sometimes,  yes  ;  more 
frequently,  no;  you  would  be  sorry  to  find  out  that 


244      CITY    TEMPLE    SERMONS 

you  were  wrong.  Is  not  this  discovery  enough  to 
make  you  think  with  horror  and  alarm  about  your 
own  condition  ?  If  a  grudge  hke  that  hes  at  the  bottom 
of  your  heart,  then  what  you  pretended  to  denounce 
was  not  the  thing  that  was  stirring  your  indignation 
at  alL  Moreover,  when  we  speak  about  grudges,  we 
speak  about  a  somewhat  that  can  enter  by  the  back 
door  and  vitiate  all  the  good  to  which  a  man  puts  his 
hand.  A  minor  offence  we  call  it.  We  do  not  ask  a 
man  to  resign  his  church  membership  because  he  bears 
a  grudge  against  someone  else,  but  we  would  ask  him 
not  to  be  too  prominent  in  Christian  service  if  he  failed 
to  meet  his  creditors ;  and  yet  it  is  certain  that  the 
cherishing  of  a  grudge  is  as  much  a  sin  against  God  as 
failing  to  pay  twenty  shillings  in  the  pound. 

"  Hard-heartedness  dwells  not  with  souls  round  whom  Thine 

arms  are  drawn. 
And  dark  thoughts  fade  away  in  grace  like  cloud-spots  in 

the  dawn. 
I  often  see  in  my  own  thoughts,  when  they  lie  nearest  Thee, 
That  the  worst  men  I  ever  knew  were  better  men  than  me. " 

To  be  like  unto  our  Master,  and  to  be  really  in  joyful 
communion  with  Him,  to  be  the  possessor  of  the  peace 
of  God,  grudges  must  go.  How  many  there  are 
amongst  us  who  have  no  real  enjoyment  of  their 
Christian  life !  We  pray  and  we  sing,  we  attend  much 
upon  the  services  of  the  house  of  God,  but  we  are  never 
at  harmony  with  ourselves ;  we  wonder  what  is  the 
matter,  we  speak  about  it,  we  ask  for  guidance  of 
another,  it  may  be. 

Go  down  to  the  minor  offence,  the  sin  which  does  so 
easily  beset,  that  which  men  do  not  see  and  do  not 


THE    MINOR    OFFENCE         246 

know,  and  perhaps  do  not  reprobate;  get  rid  of  it;  it 
means  the  driving  out  of  one  spirit  by  the  incoming  of 
another.  Thomas  a  Kempis  says  in  the  "  Imitatio," 
"  When  I  consider  what  I  am,  then  no  man  hath  ever 
done  wrong  to  me."  I  think  I  know  what  he  meant : 
we  have  no  right  to  cherish  grudges,  no  right  to  feel 
ill-treated,  no  right  to  consider  ourselves  superior  to 
another  who  has  inflicted  a  wrong.  For,  when  all  is 
told,  we  have  deserved  far  more  of  pain  than  we  have 
ever  got.  God  is  merciful,  but  except  we  forgive  men 
their  trespasses  His  mercy  is  stayed  from  us.  As  I 
came  up  from  Brighton  one  morning,  I  noted  that  the 
sun  was  shining  brightly  about  halfway  up  the  line. 
When  we  got  near  London  it  was  gone.  Am  I  to  sup- 
pose that  it  has  ceased  to  shine  on  the  sea-coast?  I 
do  not  believe  it.  I  think  London  has  sent  up  from 
her  great  heart  greyish,  blackish  clouds,  which  obscure 
the  face  of  the  sun.  Often  when  you  complain  of  the 
absence  of  the  peace  of  God  and  the  sunlight  of  heaven 
in  your  soul,  it  is  because  you  have  generated  affections 
which  will  not  let  the  Holy  Spirit  through,  you  have 
placed  between  yourself  and  your  Master  barriers  it 
needs  repentance  to  remove.  Let  us  get  low  down  at 
the  Cross  of  Christ,  humble  ourselves  under  the  mighty 
hand  of  God,  and  He  shall  lift  us  up.  See  with  a  new 
sympathy  the  kinship  of  humanity  everywhere,  feel  its 
heartbeat,  get  to  the  undercurrent  where  we  are  all 
divine.  Respect  the  sacredness  of  another's  soul ;  look 
with  new  eyes  upon  mankind,  the  eyes  of  Jesus,  for,  as 
Whittier  has  as  sweetly  said  as  the  Faber  whom  I  just 
pow  quoted: 

'"  He  prayeth  best  who  leaves  unguessed 
The  mystery  of  another's  breast. 


246      CITY    TEMPLE    SERMONS 

Why  cheeks  are  pale,  why  eyes  o'erflow, 
Or  heads  are  white,  thou  needst  not  know. 
Enough  to  note  by  many  a  sign 
That  every  heart  hath  needs  like  thine." 

There  is  no  time  surely  for  adding  to  the  world's  pain ; 
life  is  short  at  the  best,  and  when  the  discipline  is  over 
we  do  not  want  to  think  as  we  stand  at  the  parting  of 
the  veil  that  we  have  made  it  harder  for  another  to 
fight  his  battle  and  to  win  his  way  through.  Get  the 
right  spirit  yourself,  and  you  are  working  for  the 
Christ,  though  you  do  not  know  it ;  and  if  your  spirit 
be  wrong  you  may  claim  all  the  virtues  in  the  calendar, 
but  you  do  not  belong  to  the  Master  who  hath  called  us 
to  possess  the  heart  of  a  little  child.  "  Let  this  mind 
be  in  you  which  was  also  in  Christ  Jesus."  "  For  out 
of  the  heart  proceed  the  issues  of  life." 


XXI 
VISION  AND   SERVICE 

In  the  year  that  King  Uzziah  died,  I  saw  also  the  Lord 
.  .  .  then  said  I,  Woe  is  me  !  for  I  am  undotie  ;  because  I 
am  a  man  of  unclean  lips,  and  I  dwell  in  the  midst  of  a 
people  of  unclean  lips;  for  mine  eyes  have  seen  the  King,  the 
Lord  of  Hosts.  Then  flew  one  of  the  seraphims  unto  me  ,  ,  . 
and  said  .  .  .  thine  iniquity  is  taken  away,  and  thy  sin 
purged.  Also  I  heard  the  voice  of  the  Lord,  saying.  Whom 
shall  I  send,  and  who  will  go  for  us?  Then  said  I,  Here 
am  I;  send  me. — Isaiah  vi.  i,  j,  6,  7,  8. 

IN  this  chapter  we  have  the  account  of  the  begin- 
nings of  a  great  prophetic  ministry  which  has  pro- 
foundly influenced  the  world.  Of  what  nature  the 
vision  of  Isaiah  might  have  been  we  are  hardly  justified 
in  attempting  to  speculate.  That  it  was  mainly  subjec- 
tive and  symbolical  is  perfectly  clear  from  the  narra- 
tive itself,  but  it  was  a  vision  corresponding  to  an 
objective  reality,  which  would  have  been  there,  whether 
Isaiah  had  known  it  or  not,  and  which  always  is, 
whether  the  world  knows  it  or  not. 

"  In  the  year  that  King  Uzziah  died  I  saw  the  Lord." 
This  vision  is  by  no  means  unique  in  religious  history, 
and  especially  in  Christian  history.  I  need  hardly 
bring  to  your  recollection  the  vision  of  St.  Paul,  the 
vision  of  St.  Francis,  the  vision  of  Wesley,  the  vision 
of  Charles  Spurgeon  and  of  Catherine  Booth.  Men 
must  see  before  they  can  say,  and  in  this  crisis  of  an 

247 


248      CITY    TEMPLE    SERMONS 

experience — an  experience  not  peculiar  to  Isaiah — we 
see  something  and  know  something  which  holds  good 
of  prophetic  spiritual  experience  for  all  time. 

This  was  a  time  of  great  national  crisis.  The  king 
was  dead.  The  prophet-statesman  was  musing  sadly 
about  the  future  What  now?  Amid  a  people,  some 
of  them  degraded,  indisposed  for  high  and  holy  things, 
darkness  gathering  around  the  national  destiny,  the 
great  soul  of  Isaiah  was  perturbed — and  yet,  in  this 
moment  of  deep  darkness,  the  vision  comes.  How, 
we  are  not  told,  nor  how  long  it  stayed ;  but  "  in  the 
year  that  King  Uzziah  died  I  saw  the  Lord,"  the  King, 
the  Lord  of  Hosts.  But  the  vision  at  first  brought  no 
comfort ;  rather  was  Isaiah  trembling  and  afraid.  It 
becomes  no  man  to  rush  lightly  and  irreverently  into 
the  presence  of  God,  and  no  man  who  has  ever  had  a 
deep  and  profound  consciousness  of  that  presence  Di- 
vine ever  can  speak  of  it  as  though  it  were  all  sweet- 
ness, and  there  were  nothing  of  which  to  stand  in  awe. 
This  is  true  of  the  saint,  let  alone  of  the  sinner ;  and 
at  that  moment,  when  the  vision  came,  Isaiah  was  no 
saint — "  Woe  is  me,  for  I  am  undone.  .  .  .  For  mine 
eyes  have  seen  the  King,  the  Lord  of  Hosts.  I  am 
a  man  of  unclean  lips,  and  I  dwell  in  the  midst  of  a 
people  of  unclean  lips."  Then  comes  the  symbolical 
cleansing.  I  see  by  your  faces  as  I  speak  that  some  of 
you  know  well  this  spiritual  pathway,  the  sense  of  awe 
and  dread  in  the  presence  of  God,  the  discovery  of  joy 
and  peace  and  assurance  in  that  same  presence  Divine, 
the  fruit  of  a  cleansing.  However,  that  cleansing  came. 
Isaiah  was  sure  that  it  had  come,  and  hence,  w;hen  the 
call  was  given  in  the  moment  that  followed,  he  whose 
iniquity  had  been  taken  away,  and  whose  sin  purged, 


VISION    AND    SERVICE  249 

could  say,  as  a  sinner,  volunteering  for  service  among 
sinners,  "  Here  am  I ;  send  me." 

There,  brethren,  is  the  sequence  of  the  spiritual  ex- 
perience, which  was  the  beginning  of  all  great  mission- 
ary endeavour ;  and  at  the  beginning  of  all  great  mis- 
sionary movements,  all  great  evangelical  enthusiasm, 
there  is  such  experience  as  this.  To  come  from  Isaiah's 
time  and  experience  to  our  own,  and  to  the  day  in 
which  we  live,  and  to  the  country  whose  citizens  we 
are,  and  to  the  subject.  Let  me  say  at  once,  and  ab- 
ruptly, that  the  present  state  of  foreign  missionary  en- 
deavour is  one  which,  while  it  gives  us  much  cause 
for  joy  and  thanksgiving  to  God,  also  should  arouse  in 
us  much  heart-searching,  and  cause  something  of  dis- 
quiet. I  know  not  what  your  missionary  report  of  this 
year  may  be ;  I  know  not  for  what  total  of  results  you 
have  to  praise  our  Father  in  heaven ;  but  I  know  the 
Society  in  which  I  am  most  immediately  concerned  and 
interested,  and  I  feel  that  at  the  present  time  the  evan- 
gelical churches  of  this  country  have  much  cause  for 
introspection  and  for  self-reproach  that  things  are  not 
as  they  ought  to  be.  Criticism  assails  us  from  with- 
out, even  in  the  mission  field  itself.  There  is,  we  are 
assured,  in  some  quarters,  in  spite  of  our  grand  total 
of  results,  and  in  spite  of  the  noble  and  disinterested 
services  of  many  of  those  who  go  out  from  our  churches 
to  the  mission  field,  a  declining  interest  in  the  foreign 
missionary  question  as  a  whole.  Nor  is  this  true 
merely  of  the  general  public,  and  of  those  who  are 
casually  and  loosely  the  adherents  of  our  churches,  and 
join  with  us  in  public  worship.  I  fear  we  must  say — 
and  let  us  frankly  face  the  fact — that  some  of  those 
who  are  interested  in  our  work  at  home,  deeply  con- 


250     CITY    TEMPLE    SERMONS 

ceraed  in  it,  who  profess  and  call  themselves  Chris- 
tians, who  believe  that  they  have  a  personal  relation- 
ship to  Christ,  are  beginning  to  discourage  our  mis- 
sionary effort  abroad.  They  say  that  our  methods  are 
not  suited  to  the  heathen ;  that  it  were  better  that  we 
revise  them ;  perhaps  better  that  we  evangelise  at  home 
before  we  venture  abroad  at  all.  In  a  word,  all  the 
old  arguments  which  William  Carey  and  such  as  he 
heard  a  century  and  a  half  ago. 

My  brethren,  where  there  is  no  argument  there  is  a 
strange  and  serious  apathy  creeping  over  many  of  the 
members  of  our  churches.  They  not  only  say  nothing 
about  foreign  missions,  they  do  nothing  for  them.  And 
lastly,  I  think  we  are  justified  in  saying  that  while  it  is 
not  always  true  that  we  ought  to  blame  the  ministers  for 
want  of  interest  in  any  noble  subject  on  the  part  of  their 
people,  yet  perhaps  among  the  ministers  themselves 
some  subjects  are  nearer  to  their  hearts  and  some 
interests  occupy  a  larger  place  in  their  affections  than 
that  of  going  into  all  the  world  and  preaching  the  Gos- 
pel of  the  grace  of  God. 

I  am  perfectly  sure  of  this,  that  if  the  Church  of 
Christ  as  a  whole  had  ever  fallen  into  this  way  of  look- 
ing at  the  great  question  which  is  ours  this  morning, 
then  the  Church  would  have  been  doomed.  She  has 
saved  herself  by  revivals  of  missionary  interest  and 
missionary  effort  from  century  to  century.  The  liv- 
ing Church  is  a  missionary  Church ;  the  Church 
which  ceases  to  be  a  missionary  Church  is  dead. 
But  I  think  this  apathy  or  declining  interest,  call 
it  what  you  will,  in  this  country  to-day,  in  the 
question  of  foreign  missions,  is  rather  a  symptom  of 
something  which  lies  deeper  than  we  have  actually  im- 


VISION   AND    SERVICE         251 

agined,  and  is  itself  a  main  current  or  cause  of  action 
or  inaction.  I  think  the  whole  country  over,  the  time 
has  come  for  us  to  wait  upon  God  for  a  great  revival 
of  His  work  at  home,  and  for  a  fresh  outpouring  of 
the  Holy  Spirit  upon  the  people  of  God,  that  we  may 
one  and  all  become  missionaries,  whether  here  or  in 
the  foreign  field. 

We  have  passed  through,  shall  I  say  in  the  last 
twenty^  ye^s,  a'period  of  criticism  and  negation,  in 
which  all  the  fundarnentaTTof  the  Christian  faith  have 
gone  into  the  meltmg-pot ;  in  whicft,  as  it  seemed,  r^n's 
mood  toward  the  eternal  verities  h^  been  one  of^  hesi- 
tation an3."  uncefTainty ;  an  atmosphere  fatal  to  enthu- 
siasm.  When  preachers  take  to  balancing  evidence  in 
tRe  pulpit  for_this_fact  or  for  that,  facts_which^  vitally 
concern  our  Christian  experience;  when  we  are^afraM 
of  fervour  and  enthusiasm ;  when  we  are  anxious  not  to 
make  ourselves  ridiculous  by  committing  ourselves  too 
strongly  to  the  great  facts  of  Christian  faith ;  when  the 
note  of  authority  and  holv  experience js  missing ;  thenjt 
is  time  tojook  tq_gurselves,  ministers  and  people.  We 
have  passed  through  such  a  period  as  this,  and  I  be- 
lieve— and  I  think  I  am  right  in  believing — that  it  is 
coming  to  an  end.  The  time  has  been  when  the  note  of 
spiritual  experience  was  more  strongly  sounded  from 
the  pulpit  than  it  is  just  now.  Sometimes  it  is  falsely 
sounded ;  I  think  I  have  heard  it  so.  If  there  has  been 
one  note  which  Methodism  has  sounded  more  clearly 
than  any  other  evangelical  body,  it  has  been  the  note 
of  holy  fervour,  enthusiastic  sincerity.  You  may  have 
been  weak  in  some  other  directions,  but,  from  the  day 
when  your  first  lay  preachers  went  forth,  that  has 
been  a  note  which  has  drawn  men  into  the  Kingdom  in 


252     CITY    TEMPLE    SERMONS 

multitudes,  and  always  will.  If  that  note  is  lost,  or  if 
it  is  more  quaveringly  sounded  to-day,  I  pray  the 
Lord  to  give  it  you  back  again !  The  truth  is  that  we 
are  ashamed  sometimes  of  committing  ourselves  too 
strongly  to  the  advocacy  of  the  things  which,  if  they 
be  true,  are  the  only  things  worth  preaching  about  at 
all,  and  if  they  be  untrue  we  had  better  shut  up  our 
churches  and  be  done  with  it  all. 

There  are  certain  things  that  I  would  like  to  place 
before  you,  apart  from  all  questions  of  criticism,  all 
questions  about  Christian  evidences  of  any  sort — 
things  that  human  nature  always  wants  to  hear  about, 

/and  always  will,  in  this  country  or  in  any  other.    These 
are  suggested  in  my  text,  and  of  them  I  may  instance 

-  two.     The  first  is  the  necessity  for  vision  of  God,  and 

'the  second  is  the  renewal    of  the  fellowship  of  the 

•cleansing. 

I.      THE    NECESSITY    FOR    VISION    OF    GOD 

When  I  speak  about  vision  of  God,  I  speak  of  that 
which  human  nature  everywhere,  even  when  it  negates, 
is,  consciously  or  sub-consciously,  craving  for.  We  are 
told  that  our  churches  are  emptying  to-day,  and,  ac- 
cording to  statistics  recently  published,  it  might  seem 
as  if  in  the  great  Metropolis  this  were  in  a  measure 
true,  and  Methodism  itself  is  not  exempt  from  the  gen- 
eral trend.  But  I  would  have  you  to  note  that  where 
any  man  is  sure  oT^his  own  experience,  and  speaks  it 
in  words  wTiich  betray  no  superficiality  in  attainment ; 
when  a  man  speaks  from  the  depths  of  him  about  the 
eternal  realities,  people  will  come  t£  hear,  be  h£  ejo- 
quent  or  no.  It  is  perfectly  sure  that  the  restless  crav- 
ing of  the  human  heart— a  craving  which  will  never  be 


VISION    AND    SERVICE         ^53 

stilled  without  God — is  in  our  midst  to-day  as  much 
as  it  ever  was ;  and  what  the  people  need  is  vision  of 
God.  Where  there  is  no  vision  the  people  perish. 
That  vision  has  been  stated  in  words  that  are  nobler 
than  any  I  can  employ  to  you  this  morning,  by  a  great 
poet  who  sprang  from  the  ranks  of  Nonconformity  in 
the  last  century: 

"  I  have  always  had  one  lode-star  ;  now, 
As  I  look  back,  I'see  that  I  have  halted 
Or  hastened  as  iTooked  towards  tha.t  star — 
A  need,  a  trust,  a  yearning  after  God," 

And,  as  a  cynic  in  the  van  of  the  world  put  it  not 
more  than  a  generation  back,  after  a  crisis  which  in  a 
fashion  might  be  compared  with  that  of  Isaiah,  "  There 
is  God — what  God  ?  "     It  is  not  the  God  of  philosophy 
that  we  want,  though  there  is  such  a  God ;  it  is  not  the 
|God  of  science  that  men  crave  to  know,  though  there 
jis  such  a  God,  who  holds  the  world  in  the  hollow  of 
.His  hand;  it  is  the  God  who  is  the  Soul  of  our  soul,  the 
•Life  of  our  lives,  the  Father  of  our  spirits.    "  A  need, 
)a  trust,  a  yearning  after  God."      Men's  desire  is  for 
Isuch  a  God  as  this — Master,  Saviour,  Father,  Friend. 
The  world,  and  England,  and  the  people  to  whom  you 
and  I  commonly  speak,  are  one  and  all,  in  whatever 
way  they  express  their  craving,  seeking  for  vision  of 
such  a  God.     The  vision  which  has  come  to  men  who 
have  stood  upon  the  mountain-top  century  after  cen- 
tury in  Christian  history  is  the  vision  which  I  seek 
should  be  given  afresh  to  us  to-day.     The  disciples  in 
the    upper    room    had    such    vision    granted,    and    It 
was  not  the  vision  of  the  bodily  presence  only,  merely, 
or  even  chiefly,  which  changed  them  into  heroes  and 
saints ;  it  was  simply  that  they  knew  whom  they  had 


254     CITY    TEMPLE    SERMONS 

believed — the  Jesus  who  stood  in  the  midst.  The  vision 
ofjjod  which  has  brought  to  Christendom  all  the  light 
and  love  and^joj  in  whkh  we  are  living  to-day  was 
vision  of  God  through  Jesus  Christ.  A  few  timid 
fisEermen  meeting  in  an  upper  room,  huddled  by  them- 
selves for  fear  of  the  Jews,  with  the  door  fast  shut  be- 
tween them  and  danger,  on  the  morrow  become  heroes, 
valiant  in  the  fight,  who  stand  unabashed  before  princes 
and  kings,  and  witness  in  the  name  of  the  Crucified. 
What  wrought  the  change?  Whence  came  the  mir- 
acle? Why  the  three  thousand  added  to  the  Church 
on  the  day  of  the  Pentecost?  It  was  the  fruit  of  a 
vision  of  God  which  was  the  first  vision  of  Jesus.  That 
vision,  testified  to  by  the  Holy  Spirit  down  the  ages, 
has  reached  us  this  morning  by  a  magnificent  apostolic 
succession.  God  has  never  left  Himself  without  a 
'  witness ;  men  have  had  vision  of  Jesus,  hence  vision  of 
'the  Father.  Men  have  that  vision  to-day — God  grant 
'us  more !  St.  Paul  on  his  way  to  Damascus  sees  a 
vision  none  other  but  himself  could  see,  and  hears  a 
voice  remonstrate  with  him  upon  his  ways,  and  his 
response  to  the  question  addressed  to  him  then,  to  the 
call  which  came  to  him  in  that  moment  of  crisis,  has 
aflfected  your  life  and  mine  far  more  than  we  know. 
There  was  a  man  whose  whole  life  was  given  up  to  an 
ideal  because  of  a  vision  he  had  seen  and  knew,  and 
giving  his  account  of  his  own  commission,  even  by  way 
of  remonstrance,  he  phrased  it  so :  "  Am  not  I  an 
apostle?  Am  I  not  free?  Have  I  not  seen  Jesus 
Christ?  "  Renan,  in  writing  his  well-known  "  Life  of 
St.  Paul,"  somewhere  says,  in  words  that  have  become 
familiar,  concerning  the  uncertainty  that  envelops  the 
end  of  the  great  apostle  of  the  Gentiles,  "  Convinced 


VISION    AND    SERVICE  255 

that  he  had  given  his  Hfe  for  a  dream,  Paul  may  have  O 
wandered,  despairing,  resigned,  on  some  Iberian  shore,  # 
aware  of  the  nothingness  of  Hfe."  Thank  God  that 
with  a  certain  inwardness  we  can  read  in  the  letters 
that  came  from  a  burning  experience,  such  testimony 
as  this :  "  For  me  to  live  is  Christ,  and  to  die  is  gain. 
I  have  fought  a  good  fight,  I  have  finished  my  course,  I 
have  kept  the  faith.  I  am  now  ready  to  be  offered." 
There  was  the  fruit  of  a  vision  of  God,  precious  and 
near,  compelling  and  tender;  it  made  the  Apostle  of 
the  Gentiles  the  instrument  of  an  evangel  which  has 
reached  us  in  this  church  this  morning.  We  are  the 
fruit  of  such  a  vision,  and  it  is  ours  to  pass  it  on. 

Time  would  fail  me  to  speak  of  the  instances  in 
which  vision  of  God  has  transformed  comparatively 
humble  lives,  and  magnified  personality,  given  a  new 
colour  to  life,  a  new  authority  to  holy  endeavour.  Per- 
haps one  might  be  pardoned  for  being  so  intimately 
personal  as  to  say,  however  much  one  may  be  sure  of  the 
reality  of  other  experiences,  one  can  always  be  more 
sure  of  one's  own.  Will  you  allow  the  man  who  speaks 
to  you  this  morning  as  a  brother  to  say,  "  I,  too,  have 
seen  the  Lord"?  and, as  Cardinal  Newman  said  of  him- 
self,! would  be  more  sure  of  the  vision  than  that  I  have 
hands  and  feet.  Whatever  appearances  may  be  to-day, 
whatever  may  be  the  religious  outlook,  however  serious 
may  seem  the  deadening  apathy  which  we  are  assured 
has  stolen  over  the  spiritual  natures  of  our  country- 
men, this  I  believe,  that  if  we  can  only  multiply  the 
number  of  those  who  have  vision  of  God,  however 
humble  may  be  their  power,  however  restricted  their 
sphere,  the  future  of  the  Church,  the  future  of  the  na- 
tion, and  the  future  of  the  cause  of  Christ  in  the  mis- 


!256     CITY    TEMPLE    SERMONS 

sion  field  is  perfectly  safe.     "  In  the  year  that  King 
Uzziah  died,  I  saw  the  Lord." 

II.      THE    RENEWAL    OF    THE    FELLOWSHIP    OF   THE 
CLEANSING 

That  leads  me  to  the  second  experience  of  which  I 
spoke,  and  here  I  confess  I  have  come  to  something 
which  it  is  difficult  to  state  as  it  should  be  stated — the 
fellowship  of  the  cleansing.      We  are  sometimes  told  ^ 
that  the  sense  of  sin  is  dying  or  dead.     Don't  you  be-  i 
lieve  it;  it  is  not  true.      But  I  have  discovered  a  curi- 
ous fact — that  the  sense  of  sin  can  exist  without  much 
of  the  sense  of  God.      I  know  men  to-day,  wretched, 
miserable,  blind,  for  whom  life  has  lost  its  whole  value;' 
they  know  nothing  of  God,  doubt  whether,  or  deny,i 
there  is  a  God ;  but  they  know  sin,  and  they  know  that 
sin  has  been  conqueror  in  their  nature,  and  that  they  I 
are  paying  a  heavy  price  for  the  victory  which  sin  has  t 
gained.     When  you  meet  with  people  whose  lives  have 
been  comparatively  smooth,  as  you  do  in  your  churches, 
and  hear  them  say  that  they  cannot  understand  the  ex- 
travagant language  of  gratitude  in  which  some  Chris- 
tians indulge  for  their  experience  of  God's  pardoning 
love,  ask  them  to  come  and  study  human  nature  in  its 
agony.     You  will  find  that  the  dual  burden  of  sorrow 
and  sin  is  universal ;  sooner  or  later,  it  comes  to  every 
man  with  poignancy,  and,  sooner  or  later,  the  craving 
goes   up,  the  cry  to   which  there   is  no   satisfaction 
but  Christ — "  What  shall  I  do  to  be  saved  ?  "      They 
tell  me  that  missionaries  going  to  the  foreign  field 
sometimes  have  to  create  a  conscience  in  their  hearers ; 
better  say,  they  have  to  interpret  to  their  hearers  what 


VISION    AND    SERVICE  257 

conscience  has  already  said.  Down  in  the  depths  of  a 
man  there  is  a  question  continually  being  asked,  a 
question  concerning  the  meaning  of  life,  the  burden  of 
sorrow,  escape  from  wrong.  I  never  met  a  man  yet 
of  whom  it  would  not  be  true  to  say  that  he  has,  how- 
ever inadequate  and  however  much  it  needs  to  be  illu- 
mined by  the  Holy  Spirit,  such  sense  of  sin  as  would, 
if  you  could  truly  state  it,  bring  him  to  the  Cross  in 
humility,  contrition,  and  penitence  of  heart.  I  know 
nothing  to  meet  this  experience  save  the  Gospel,  which, 
for  1900  years,  has  been  preached  by  those  who  had  the 
vision,  and  as  we  are  trying  to  preach  it  to-day.  Breth- 
ren, if  the  accent  of  conviction  is  lost  or  feeble,  let  us 
have  that  back  again.  The  stronger  and  more  vivid 
the  experience  of  the  fellowship  of  the  cleansing  the 
more  powerful  will  be  our  message,  our  Gospel. 

Sometimes  I  have  been  told,  again,  that  men  will  re- 
fuse to  believe  in  forgiveness,  and  I  think  that  is  true. 
In  this  great  city  I  know  not  one,  nor  two,  nor  three 
who  will  accept  a  kind  of  fatalistic  philosophy  of  life — 
believe  that  once  the  great  mistake  has  been  made,  once 
the  terrible  surrender  to  evil  has  been  made,  there  is 
no  deliverance ;  a  man  must  lie  on  the  bed  he  has  pre- 
pared for  himself,  must  dree  his  own  weird,  must  wait 
until  the  last  dread  enemy  comes,  and  sin  and  sorrow 
are  forgotten  in  the  grave.     You  will  meet  this  around 
you,  and  sometimes  it  fails  to  find  its  message  in  the 
pulpit;  but  the  only  answer  to  the  experience  is  the 
Cross.      And  wait — never  be  in  too  great  a  hurry  to 
'explain  the  Cross.      It  is  the  truest  thing  in  human 
I  nature ;  it  strikes  to  the  deepest  part  of  human  experi- 
*ence.     You  never  will  state  in  terms  of  the  human  in- 
i  tellect  the  deepest  things  of  the  heart.      To  explain 


258      CITY    TEMPLE    SERMONS 

the  Cross  were  impossible ;  you  would  have  to  com- 
prehend eternity.  But  to  feel  the  power  of  the  Cross  is 
possible;  nay,  the  power  of  the  cleansing,  the  new  fel- 
lowship, the  risen  life  are  made  possible  by  the  in- 
troduction of  the  human  heart  to  the  passion  of  God, 
and  in  Christ  and  Him  crucified  we  reach  that  point. 

I  wonder  if  you  will  bear  with  me,  or  understand 
precisely  what  I  mean, if  I  attempt  a  somewhat  mystical 
utterance.  To  get  where  I  am  pointing  you  now,  you 
have  to  stand  beneath  even  the  experience  of  gratitude 
for  God's  pardoning  love.  There  is  something  deeper 
than  gratitude  in  the  fellowship  of  the  cleansing.  I 
can't  say  what  it  is — nobody  can — but  the  thing  which 
the  sinner  dreads  before  the  touch  of  the  Cross  comes 
to  him  he  ceases  to  dread  any  more ;  he  fronts  eternity 
unblanched.  Like  St.  Paul,  he  knows  what  it  is  to 
say,  in  the  fellowship  of  the  cleansing,  "  Who  is  weak, 
and  I  am  not  weak?  Who  is  offended,  and  I  burn 
not  ?  "  We  cleave  to  the  soul  of  the  Redeemer ;  the 
passion  to  be  redeemers  comes  over  us.  Down  below 
mere  gratitude  for  Jesus  there  is  a  fellowship  with 
Jesus  Himself,  and  not  the  Jesus  of  the  sunshine  only, 
but  the  Jesus  of  the  shadow,  the  Jesus  of  the  deepest 
things,  the  Jesus  who  ministers  to  the  woe  of  the  hu- 
man heart.  In  the  fellowship  of  the  cleansing,  the 
fellowship  of  the  Cross,  the  missionary  is  born;  and, 
brethren,  I  don't  believe  there  is  any  other  way  of 
making  a  missionary.  Societies  will  not  do  it;  well- 
organised  collections  will  not  do  it,  philanthropy  is  no 
substitute  for  it.  The  only  missionary  motive  in  which 
I  have  much  belief  at  all  is  urgent,  compelling,  over- 
whelming love  to  Jesus,  born  of  the  fellowship  of  the 
cleansing,   the   fellowship   of   the   depths    with   God. 


VISION    AND    SERVICE  259 

But  for  Calvary  we  could  never  have  had  it;  but  for 
the  Cross  we  should  not  know  what  it  means.     The 

^  Cross  of  Christ  in  our  experience  become  the  dynamic 

I  of  missionary  endeavour, 

I  was  once  in  a  company  where  a  minister  was  speak- 
ing about  what  he  called  the  New,  or  Social,  Gospel. 
Well,  I  believed  him.  Quite  true,  we  need  it;  we  are 
to  blame  for  not  preaching  it  sooner.  But  he  said  it 
was  the  whole  Gospel ;  he  said,  "  I  believe  that  our 
Lord  is  well  pleased  by  those  who  offer  Him  little  or  no 
devoutness,  who  are  not  sure  about  the  claims  of  the 
Christ,  and  especially  the  dogma  of  the  Atonement,  but 
who  are  serving  to  the  best  of  their  ability  their  brother 
men."  I  felt  it  was  superficial,  though  the  whole  room 
was  against  me ;  and  I  felt  it  because  I  think  our  friend 
began  at  the  wrong  end.  Philanthropy  itself  is  a  fee- 
ble, pulseless  thing  unless  it  has  been  born  of  the  Cross, 
and  the  indirect  effects  of  the  evangel  of  the  Cross  are 
responsible  for  most  of  the  so-called  philanthropic  en- 
deavour of  the  day,  against  which  I  would  not  speak 
one  word  of  contempt,  but  which  sees  no  need  of  an 
evangel  to  preach.  No,  no.  The  brotherhood  which 
is  worthy  of  the  name,  the  evangelic  impulse  which 
alone  can  save  humanity,  begins  in  the  fellowship  of 
the  cleansing.  We  have  vision  of  the  Holy ;  we  have  i 
repentance  toward  God ;  we  have  the  assurance  of  sin  . 
forgiven ;  we  have  the  inflow  of  the  Spirit ;  we  have  » 
that  new  relationship,  which  the  world  can  neither  [ 
give  nor  take  away,  with  Him  who  agonised  upon  Cal- 
vary ;  and,  with  that  in  our  hearts,  with  that  motive  in 
our  minds,  with  that  strength  in  our  endeavours,  we  I 
go  forth  in  confidence.  Missionary  or  preacher  was 
never  made  in  any  other  way.     We  speak  to  the  deep 


260     CITY    TEMPLE    SERMONS 

things  in  mankind  when  we  have  first  been  to  the 
side  of  the  Christ.  It  was  this  that  made  John  Wes- 
ley say,  "  The  whole  world  is  my  parish."  It  was  this 
that  compelled  St.  Francis  Xavier  to  the  urgent  mis- 
sionary utterance,  as,  with  arms  outstretched,  he  sailed 
for  India,  "  More  sufferings,  more  sufferings,  Lord !  " 
It  was  this  that  came  to  the  Moravian  who  cried  to  his 
countrymen : 

"  I  hear  a  voice  you  cannot  hear, 
Which  bids  me  not  to  stay  ; 
I  see  a  hand  you  cannot  see, 
Which  beckons  me  away." 

If  there  were  no  humanity  to  save,  none  but  our  own, 
yours  and  mine,  the  fellowship  of  the  cleansing  would 
still  be  ours ;  but  we  would  be  seeking  for  something  to 
do  to  express  to  the  Christ  our  sense  of  what  that  fel- 
lowship had  brought. 

Two  sisters  brought  this  fact  home  to  me  within  a 
few  hours  of  the  time  in  which  I  heard  the  minister 
whom  I  have  just  quoted  speak.  One  was  weak,  suf- 
fering, dying,  though  the  other  did  not  know  it  at  the 
time.  The  one  who  was  watching  by  the  Isedside  said, 
"  It  seems  dreadful  to  be  so  helpless,  to  feel  I  can  do 
so  little  to  assuage  the  suffering  of  the  dear  one.  I  can 
do  nothing  whatever.  If  I  only  could  do  something, 
that  hurts,  hurts  me,  I  think  I  should  feel  better,  to  let 
my  love  out."  I  know  what  she  meant  quite  well — to 
let  the  love  out.  The  love  that  we  bear  the  dear  Re- 
deemer compels  us  to  see  the  Divine  in  mankind. 
There  is  a  sweet  and  holy  sympathy  born  of  that  urgent 
desire  to  let  the  love  out  which  was  born  in  the  fellow- 
ship of  the  cleansing.  The  love  of  Christ  constrains 
us. 


VISION    AND    SERVICE         261 

Brethren,  the  last  word  I  would  leave  with  you  is 
this  :  Consider  little  about  ways  and  means ;  consider 
little  about  faulty  methods ;  consider  much  whether  we 
do  not  need  once  more  vision  of  God  in  the  face  of  Him 
whose  visage  was  marred  more  than  the  face  of  any 
man;  and  whether  we  do  not  need  a  renewal  of  that 
holy  fellowship  which  begins  at  Calvary.  May  we 
feel  as  the  Apostle  of  old  felt  and  said — Paul,  the 
aged — "  For  me  to  live  is  Christ — is  Christ."  If  so, 
when  the  Master's  call  comes,  as  to  the  consecrated 
heart  it  always  comes,  we  shall  say  with  that  prophet 
of  old,  "  Here  am  I ;  send  me." 


XXII 
THE    PROPHET    IN    PRAYER* 

I  will  not  let  thee  go,  except  thou  bless  me. — Gen.  xxxn.  26. 
God  forbid  that  I  should  sin  against  the  Lord  in  ceasing 
to  pray  for  you. — /  Sajti.  xii.  23. 

MAY  I  venture  to  speak  principally  to  my 
brother  ministers,  and  not  as  a  censor,  but  as 
a  brother,  from  the  subject  of  the  Prophet  in 
Prayer?  In  these  two  striking  passages,  the  utter- 
ance of  patriarch  and  prophet,  we  have  a  source  of  in- 
spiration, a  mark  for  our  guidance,  and  a  subject  for 
heart-searching.  Here  are  two  strongly  contrasted 
crises  of  spiritual  experience,  the  experience  of  the 
servant  of  God  in  all  time.  Let  us  compare  them  a 
little  more  closely. 

In  the  first  the  patriarch  Jacob  is  before  us,  an  err- 
ing, sinning,  suffering  man.  He  has  been  for  a  gen- 
eration an  exile  from  his  father's  house,  dwelling 
amongst  strangers.  He  is  the  possessor  of  a  heritage 
obtained  by  fraud,  and  it  has  profited  him  nothing.  As 
George  Eliot  says,  "  It  was  not  worth  doing  wrong 
for;  nothing  ever  is  in  this  world."  After  the  lapse 
of  so  many  years,  one  might  have  thought  that  his 
sin  was  expiated,  and  the  very  memory  of  it  wiped  out. 
We  have  no  record  of  the  way  in  which  it  affected  him- 

•  Preached  to  the  National  Council  of  Evanp^elical  Free 
Churches,  in  the  Dome,  Brighton,  on  Tuesday  evening, 
March  10,  1903. 


PROPHET    IN    PRAYER  263 

self,  it  is  not  recalled  in  the  pages  of  the  book  in  which 
we  have  read.  Great  changes  have  taken  place  since 
the  sin  was  committed.  Jacob  is  no  longer  alone. 
With  his  staff  he  passed  over  Jordan ;  now  he  has 
become  two  bands.  He  is  returning  to  the  land 
of  his  fathers,  but  right  across  his  path  comes  a  re- 
minder of  the  day  of  his  guilt.  The  shadow  of 
retribution  is  over  him ;  Esau,  his  brother,  from 
whom  he  has  nothing  to  expect  but  vengeance, 
is  coming  to  meet  him  with  a  strength  greater  than  his 
own.  Then  the  memory  of  the  past  awakens  in  the 
breast  of  this  man,  and  not  for  himself  only  is  he  anx- 
ious now.  He  could  bear  the  worst  that  his  brother 
could  inflict,  were  it  not  that  he  is  father  and  master, 
he  has  a  household  to  think  of ;  not  to  himself  does  he 
stand  or  fall,  but  if  he  be  punished  some  should  be 
smitten  whom  he  holds  dearer  than  his  own  life.  He 
tries  every  means  to  propitiate  his  brother.  He  has 
but  little  hope  of  succeeding,  so  he  falls  to  praying. 
Alone  he  wrestles  till  the  breaking  of  the  day.  But 
in  that  dark  vigil  Esau  was  vanquished  before  the 
meeting  took  place ;  the  sinner  became  triumphant ; 
he  had  saved  not  only  himself,  but  those  he  prayed  for 
when  he  prayed  for  himself,  for  true  penitence,  let  me 
say,  always  contains  an  intercessory  element.  If  a 
man  prays  for  forgiveness  for  himself  alone,  and  if 
selfishness  be  the  most  prominent  feature  in  his  prayer, 
his  penitence  is  false.  Jacob  wrestled  till  the  breaking 
of  the  day  with  breaking  heart  because  of  his  dread  for 
his  own.  He  was  thinking  of  the  wife  and  the 
little  ones  behind  him,  and  that  was  the  reason  he  was 
so  urgent,  and  beat  against  the  breast  of  God,  saying, 
"  I  will  not  let  Thee  go,  except  Thou  bless  me."     And 


264      CITY    TEMPLE    SERMONS 

the  blessing  came;  that  sinful,  suffering,  erstwhile 
mean-spirited  trickster  becomes  the  prince  who  has 
power  with  God  and  with  men,  and  has  prevailed. 

In  short  contrast  with  this  is  the  case  of  the  prophet 
Samuel.  Here  is  one  whose  own  account  of  himself 
you  have  read  in  the  pages  of  God's  word,  who  from 
his  childhood  upward  had  served  the  Lord.  He  has 
had  no  interest  of  his  own ;  the  people  of  Israel  have 
been  his  flock,  his  children,  his  very  life.  We  see  him 
now  in  the  hour  of  his  failure.  All  his  efforts  are  fruit- 
less, his  entreaties  have  gone  for  nothing,  his  labours 
are  returned  upon  him  empty.  A  rebellious  and  un- 
grateful people  stand  upon  the  one  side,  and  the  prophet 
and  his  God  stand  upon  the  other.  Now  it  is  his  duty, 
stern  and  hard,  to  denounce  them  and  warn  them  of 
the  terrors  of  the  law.  It  is  a  sublime  moment  in  his 
life,  but  it  is  a  question  whether  the  prophet  saw  its 
sublimity — has  any  prophet  ever  seen  the  sublimity  of 
the  supreme  moment  of  his  life?  Here  speaks  one 
who  had  no  interest  of  his  own  to  serve.  He  had  for- 
gotten himself  in  solicitude  for  his  people,  and  yet  he 
had  failed — failed.  And  as  he  warns  them  of  a  wrath 
to  come,  and  they  plead  with  him  to  entreat  with  God, 
"  Pray  for  us  that  we  die  not,"  we  can  almost  see  his 
demeanour  as  he  answers,  "  Pray  for  you  ?  All  my 
life  has  been  given  to  you;  I  have  laboured  for  you, 
and  laboured  in  vain.  But  God  forbid  that  I  should 
cease  to  pray." 

Here,  then,  in  these  two  utterances  we  have  com- 
passed for  us  the  extremes  of  experience,  the  experience 
of  every  servant  of  God  to  whom  souls  are  committed 
in  trust.  And  I  venture  to  say  that  you  must  be  Jacob 
before  you  can  be  Samuel,  and  the  prayer  of  penitence 


PROPHET    IN    PRAYER         265 

of  the  man  who  has  got  as  low  as  he  can  in  pleading 
with  God  for  his  own  soul,  the  prayer  of  penitence  is 
like  unto  the  prayer  of  the  prophet,  who  stands  between 
God  and  the  souls  of  other  men  as  a  mediator.  Here, 
then,  we  have  two  things :  we  have  the  sinner  become 
the  prince,  we  have  the  mediatorship  of  the  prophet. 

The  greatest  need  of  the  present  day  is  the  need  of 
stewards  of  the  mysteries  of  God.  We  have  ministers 
of  Christ  in  abundance,  faithful  ministers,  honest  and 
true,  but  we  have  not  many  stewards  of  the  deep 
things.  We  have  practical  men,  public  servants, 
leaders  of  thought,  champions  of  the  faith,  but  not 
many  men  with  a  vision  of  things  unseen.  We  have 
been  warned  sometimes  that  the  multitude  is  deserting 
the  house  of  God.  The  statistics  published  recently 
have  alarmed  many  of  you.  It  may  be  that  their 
significance  is  somewhat  exaggerated;  nevertheless, 
they  give  us  cause  for  some  searching  of  heart.  Can 
we  be  complacent  if  the  great  mass  of  our  countrymen 
remain  outside  the  radius  of  organised  Christianity  and 
care  nothing  for  the  public  worship  of  the  Lord's  Day 
or  the  message  of  him  who  preaches  the  good  tidings 
of  great  joy?  We  occupy  ourselves  earnestly  about 
other  things,  we  must  needs  think  about  this  thing. 

Again,  it  is  true  that  in  many  cases  the  pew  sits  in 
judgment  on  the  pulpit,  and  we  are  warned  that  the 
day  of  the  pulpit  is  over,  that  now  the  prophet  speaks 
by  the  printed  page  rather  than  by  the  living  word.  If 
so,  some  of  us  are  arraigned  at  the  bar  of  God.  It 
ought  never  to  be  so.  The  living  man,  speaking  the 
living  word,  will  always  take  precedence  of  the  printed 
page,  unless  that  page  be  the  Holy  Book,  Again,  how 
often  we  ourselves  have  felt — I  speak  as  a  hearer  now 


266      CITY    TEMPLE    SERMONS 

— when  we  have  entered  a  place  of  worship,  that  the 
man  in  the  pulpit  might  have  been  living  on  another 
planet ;  he  never  comes  near  to  my  life,  he  is  speaking 
in  an  unknown  tongue.  He  has  nothing  to  give  me, 
and  yet  he  himself  is  hungry,  and  if  he  were  in  the  pew 
he  would  know  when  the  bread  of  life  was  given  to  him 
to  sat.  How  often  it  seems  as  though  the  preacher 
is  trifling  with  the  souls  before  him !  His  sermon  has 
cost  him  infinite  pains;  how  long  it  may  have  taken 
him  to  build  it  no  one  but  himself  can  tell,  and  yet 
somehow,  when  this  sermon,  built  with  so  much  labour, 
so  much  self-sacrificing  toil,  is  presented  to  the  people, 
they  turn  away  indifferent.  He  does  not  speak  with 
the  prophet's  voice,  who  uses  the  words  of  Holy  Writ. 
How  often  it  seems,  again,  as  though  those  who  are 
listening  to  us  missed  in  our  voice  the  accent  of  con- 
viction. I  know  of  nothing  more  awful  than  the  posi- 
tion of  a  preacher  who  for  daily  bread  declares  Sunday 
after  Sunday  truths  that  do  not  spring  out  of  the  depths 
of  his  own  experience,  truths  which  he  only  half 
believes,  or  does  not  perhaps  believe  at  all.  I  have  been 
told  that  men  are  placed  in  this  position,  and  one  is 
almost  compelled  to  believe  it,  that  they  go  on  talking 
when  their  own  hearts  are  dry,  because  of  the  wife  and 
the  children  at  home  who  must  be  fed.  But  if  ever  a 
man  was  placed  in  a  Gethsemane,  surely  it  is  the  man 
placed  in  a  position  like  that. 

Then,  again,  the  note  of  authority  is  missing.  We 
want  it  back — the  note  of  spiritual  certainty.  Was  it 
not  Dr.  Clifford  who  said  the  shadow  of  the  priest  is 
upon  the  land?  Why,  Doctor?  It  is  because  the 
prophet  is  so  seldom  seen ;  and,  brethren,  it  is  indubita- 
ble that  wherever  the  prophet  stands  the  priest  has  little 


PROPHET    IN    PRAYER        267 

power.  Why  do  people  turn  to  the  priest?  Why  do 
we  find  it  necessary  to  denounce  priestcraft,  and  to  try 
to  stand  between  the  children  and  the  confessor  who 
would  claim  their  souls  ?  It  is  because  people  long  for 
the  ring  of  certainty,  for  the  voice  of  authority,  and  if 
the  prophet  is  not  there  to  give  it  in  the  accent  of  con- 
viction they  will  turn  to  the  priest,  with  his  spurious 
claims ;  but  where  the  prophet  stands  forth  with  tongue 
and  heart  of  fire  the  priest  they  will  not  endure. 
Where  can  this  accent  of  authority  come  from?  It 
must  come  from  the  living  experience  of  the  prophet 
himself.  When  we  dare  to  stand  up  to  speak  about 
the  deep  things  of  God,  we  must  be  sure  that  we  know 
them,  and  to  know  them  we  must  begin  at  the  bottom 
and  not  at  the  top.  The  true  prophet  will  never  dare 
to  speak  down.  Having  been  down,  he  stays  there  in 
the  valley  of  humiliation,  that  he  may  help  souls  who 
find  themselves  in  the  same  place.  How  often  it  is  that 
a  man  comes  to  us — shall  I  say  often  ? — but  how  has  it 
been  when  a  man  comes  to  us  with  a  broken  heart  and  a 
burden  of  guilt  and  a  lurid  past,  and  an  awful  fact  in 
his  life  with  which  we  cannot  deal?  And  we  have 
nothing  to  tell  him,  and  nothing  to  give.  "  Oh,"  you 
say,  "  we  have."  But  you  have  not ;  for  he  comes 
away  again,  and  says  you  have  not  helped  him.  Speak- 
ing from  experience  I  can  say  with  humiliation,  no 
pain  in  my  ministry  has  been  so  great  as  the  pain  of 
failure  to  bind  up  a  broken  heart,  and  to  heal  a  moral 
wound.  Was  there  something  that  one  did  not  know  ? 
In  Dr.  Fairbairn's  last  book,  "  The  Philosophy  of  the 
Christian  Religion '' — a  profound  but  beautifully 
human  book,  such  as  only  a  spiritual  scholar  could 
write — there  is  an  instance  given  of  this.    That  great 


268      CITY    TEMPLE    SERMONS 

thinker  and  master  of  the  Free  Churches  of  this 
country  says  he  once  knew  a  man  of  great  promise,  of 
unmistakable  genius,  of  powers  from  which  everybody 
expected  much,  who  had  acquitted  himself  to  the  satis- 
faction of  his  professors  and  his  fellows  in  class  before 
he  went  out  to  tell  the  great  world  the  message  of  his 
Master.  But  the  first  time  he  stood  up  in  a  pulpit, 
and  saw  before  him  the  men  who  were  really  living 
life,  and  the  women  who  were  bearing  burdens,  a  sense 
of  the  overwhelming  horror  of  it,  of  the  little  man  can 
ever  do  to  cope  with  the  forces  of  evil,  with  the  deep 
sorrow  for  which  there  appeared  to  be  no  remedy  that 
he  knew  of,  he  was  struck  dumb,  he  had  nothing  to 
say ;  but  he  silently  declared  to  God  that  if  he  escaped 
from  that  awful  place  he  would  never  lift  up  his  voice 
again  until  he  had  something  to  tell  about  a  mystery 
behind  the  mystery — good  tidings  to  save.  And, 
brethren,  be  never  did  speak  as  a  prophet  again — 
silenced  by  the  problem  of  human  sorrow.  When  I 
read  that  passage  I  felt  a  great  dread  grip  my  heart,  the 
dread  lest  one  had  been  unfaithful,  even  unconsciously, 
by  treading  on  the  surface  of  things,  unconscious  of  the 
depths  below ;  and  the  question  was  asked  and 
'  answered.  Do  I  know  the  deep  things  of  God,  or  am  I 
I  only  prattling  about  them,  as  I  stand  face  to  face  with 
j  sinning,  suffering  men  ?  We  must  know  before  con- 
I  viction  and  authority  become  part  of  our  message,  and 
men  are  won. 

And,  brethren,  we  can  only  know  by  doing  as  Jacob 
did.  We  may  have  served  for  a  generation,  and 
thought  we  were  doing  well,  that  we  could  claim  the 
promise  of  God  to  make  us  a  multitude ;  but  the  day 
comes,  perhaps,  when  we  find  ourselves  stripped  of 


PROPHET    IN    PRAYER        269 

illusions,  and  face  to  face  with  the  bare  facts  of  life. 
Then  woe  to  our  souls  if  we  trifle !  Would  we  deal 
with  sinners,  we  must  know  something  of  the  mystery 
of  the  Cross.  It  is  not  sympathy  that  is  wanted  in  the 
pulpit;  at  any  rate,  not  chiefly  sympathy.  Sympathy 
may  be  a  counsel  of  despair.  What  is  wanted  is 
identity  of  experience  with  the  men  to  whom  you 
would  speak.  If  a  man  comes  with  a  burden  of  sin, 
are  you  a  man  who  said  and  knew  what  you  meant 
when  you  said,  "  God  be  merciful  to  me  a  sinner  "  ? 
We  may  learn  something  from  the  silences  of  the  pul- 
pit, and  I  fear  often  that  the  accent  of  conviction  is 
wanting  in  the  message  of  redemption,  because  the 
prophet  has  not  been  himself  redeemed.  Brethren,  we 
have  to  get  into  the  depths  here,  and  it  is  only  done  in 
the  vigil  of  the  darkness,  and  the  wrestling  to  the  break 
of  day.  "God  be  merciful  to  me  a  sinner!"  some- 
times means,  God  show  me  my  sin  and  the  way  out, 
and  then  give  me  to  point  that  way. 

"  Beneath  the  Cross  of  Jesus 

I  fain  would  take  my  stand, 
The  shadow  of  a  mighty  rock 

Within  a  weary  land  : 
A  home  within  the  wilderness, 

A  rest  upon  the  way, 
From  the  burning  of  the  noontide  heat. 

And  the  burden  of  the  day. 

"  I  take  Thy  Cross,  O  Saviour, 

For  my  abiding  place, 
I  ask  no  other  sunshine 

Than  the  sunshine  of  Thy  face  ; 
Content  to  let  the  world  go  by. 

To  know  no  gain  or  loss, 
My  sinful  self  my  only  shame, 

My  glory  all  the  Cross." 


2V0      CITY    TEMPLE    SERMONS 

You  may  learn  that  late  in  life,  but  learn  it  you  must 
before  you  will  speak  to  sinful  men  with  the  power  of  a 
Spurgeon  or  a  Parker.  We  must  get  down  before 
we  get  up,  be  like  unto  the  sinner  that  we  may  remain 
beside  him  all  the  days  of  our  life. 

Then  it  seems  to  me  that  the  note  of  communion  is 
largely  absent  to-day.  Our  fathers  had  it — have  we 
lost  it?  There  never  was  a  time  more  fruitful  in 
Christian  efforts  than  to-day ;  there  never  was  a  time  of 
greater  activity,  never  so  many  conventions^  demon- 
strations, federations,  congresses,  and  what  not.  But 
there  was  an  old  type  of  evangelical  life,  a  solitary  and 
a  self-sufficient  type,  which  did  not,  and  could  not,  tell 
all  it  knew ;  no,  not  to  the  nearest  and  the  dearest ;  a 
time  when  men  waited  upon  God,  not  always  begging 
and  beseeching,  but  communing.  Our  fathers  may 
have  been  short  of  something,  but  they  were  right  in 
having  that.  To  be  pov/erful  with  God  you  must 
remain  with  Him.  And  to-day  is  the  result  of  our 
activity  commensurate  with  the  energy  put  forth?  If 
not,  it  might  pay  us  to  withdraw  from  a  little  of  it, 
and  get  into  the  holy  place,  and  be  alone  till  the  break- 
ing of  the  day,  till  we  can  wrench  a  blessing,  as  it 
were,  from  the  unwilling  hands  of  God.  Sometimes 
God  makes  the  giving  of  His  greatest  blessings  hard, 
and  when  we  have  got  them  we  are  glad  that  it  was  so. 
Jacob  wrestled  as  for  life  and  death,  praying  for  his 
own  soul  because  he  knew  that  with  his  personality 
was  bound  up  the  spiritual  destiny  of  others.  The 
worst  punishment  that  ever  falls  upon  guilt  is  the 
punishment  which  is  borne  by  the  innocent  in  the  sight 
of  the  guilty.  And  no  man  falleth  to  himself;  there- 
fore, by  what  we  are  not,  some  suffer,  as  by  what  we 


PROPHET    IN    PRAYER  '211 

are,  some  gain.  Into  the  holy  place !  With  violence, 
heavenly  violence,  take  the  kingdom  by  force,  "  I  will 
not  let  thee  go,  except  thou  bless  me."  The  prophet's 
mediatorship  is  of  many  kinds.  It  is  a  loneliness.  All 
prophets  are  lonely.  There  is  something  that  this  as- 
sembly will  not  do  for  you,  brethren,  not  for  any  of  you. 
You  will  go  back  as  lonely  in  the  deepest  things  as 
when  you  came  here.  If  from  the  word  that  is  so 
feebly  spoken  from  this  platform  to-night  you  are 
getting  good  you  will  never  be  able  to  tell  to  the 
preacher  himself  what  good;  you  will  feel  as  though 
he  were  thrust  out  of  the  operation,  and  God  laid  a 
grip  upon  your  soul.  There  is  an  immediacy  in 
spirituality,  if  it  is  to  have  value,  and  that  is  purchased 
at  a  price. 

Mark  the  contrast  between  Samuel  and  Jacob. 
Jacob  stood  between  his  people  and  the  consequences  of 
his  sin ;  Samuel  stood  between  his  people  and  the  conse- 
quences of  theirs.  When  once  you  have  known  what 
true  repentence  means,  when  once  the  burden  of  souls 
is  laid  upon  you,  you  will  often  play  the  part  of  Samuel, 
you  will  be  thrusting  yourself  between  your  people  and 
their  own  sin  and  the  suffering  that  comes  therefrom. 
Here  is  the  spirit  of  prophecy  which  merges  it  in 
priesthood.  Never  be  afraid  of  the  spurious  priest ;  if 
you  have  the  mediatorship  of  the  prophet  you  will  be 
laid  upon  the  altar  of  sacrifice,  counting  not  the  cost  for 
love  of  God  and  sympathy  for  men.  As  Samuel 
wrought,  so  will  you.  For,  if  you  have  ever  been  into 
the  holy  place  bearing  your  own  sins  before  God,  you 
will  know  the  way  again  for  sins  that  are  not  yours. 

What  things  matter  most?  Let  the  sincerity  of 
our    Christian    activity    show.       It    is    the    souls    of 


272      CITY    TEMPLE    SERMONS 

men  that  matter  most.  The  soul  of  one  Httle 
child  is  of  more  importance  to  the  great  scheme 
of  things  and  the  Master  of  them  than  any  council 
of  state  or  international  treaty.  The  things  that 
matter  are  souls.  But  how  few  know  to-day  what 
it  is  to  travail  for  a  soul!  We  feel  an  interest 
in  men,  and  an  interest  in  sermons;  we  have  a  great 
deal  to  say,  and  we  say  it  with  earnestness ;  but  often  it 
does  not  matter  much  when  the  saying  is  over  what 
becomes  of  the  souls  to  whom  it  was  said.  Oh, 
brethren,  if  we  can  just  alter  that,  England  will  be 
stirred  to  the  heart  and  centre  before  the  twentieth  cen- 
tury has  gone  far.  We  are  pleading  for  a  revival  of 
spiritual  religion  in  the  nation.  I  care  not  what  form 
it  may  take ;  it  all  depends  upon  the  prophet's  prayer, 
the  prophet's  mediation,  whether  there  be  a  revival  at 
all. 

Some  of  you  have  read,  perhaps  all  of  you  have  read, 
Victor  Hugo's  "  Notre  Dame."  The  most  harrowing 
scene  in  that  book  comes  near  the  end,  and  I  confess 
without  shame  that  I  did  not  sleep  for  two  nights  after 
I  had  read  it.  It  is  the  scene  in  which  the  most  inter- 
esting character  in  the  book,  a  fair  young  girl,  is  put  to 
death  as  a  witch  after  she  had  just  met  and  discovered 
her  mother.  It  would  be  too  long  to  quote  it,  I  shall 
not  try.  This  fair  young  girl  is  the  victim  of  the  filthy 
brutes  who  take  away  her  life,  though  she  was  pure  as 
a  lily.  That  worst  of  monarchs,  that  superstitious 
devil,  Louis  the  Eleventh,  gave  her  to  the  gallows. 
The  officer  of  the  so-called  law  came  to  seejc^her,  and 
an  old  hag  to  whom  she  fled  for  refuge  would  have 
given  her  up  with  cynicism  and  mocking  laughter,  but 
she  discovered  it  was  her  own  child,  long  lost.     Ah! 


PROPHET    IN    PRAYER  2V3 

how  that  mother  changed.  The  divine  in  her  woke  up. 
Inch  by  inch  and  foot  by  foot  she  fought  for  her 
daughter's  hfe,  with  talons  and  with  tongue,  with  the 
storm  of  denunciation,  and  with  the  pleading  eloquence 
of  agony  that  melted  the  hearts  of  the  executioners. 
And  had  it  not  been  that  their  own  life  would  have 
paid  the  forfeit  they  would  have  let  their  victim  go. 
But  it  was  all  in  vain.  The  daughter  was  hung,  and 
her  mother  perished  at  the  foot  of  the  scaffold.  She 
won — she  won !  "  In  death  they  were  not  divided," 
and  it  may  be  that  vicious  old  sot,  whose  life  had  been 
given  to  vice  and  to  infamy,  was  saved  in  that  moment 
of  her  death  by  her  intercessory  striving  for  her  daugh- 
ter's life.     God  give  it  to  her  in  heaven. 

I  may  be  speaking  to  a  man  who  knows  a  little  about 
what  that  means;  one  who  has  fought  with  death  for 
his  boy.  You  lost  that  battle ;  that  Prince  of  heaven 
prevailed  against  you,  and  your  child  is  safe  in  the 
arms  of  Jesus.  Can  it  teach  you  how  to  fight  with  hell 
for  somebody  else's  boy  ?  Ah !  the  eloquence  born  of 
experience !  If  you  have  been  near  to  the  mouth  of 
the  pit  of  destruction  yourself,  even  in  prayer;  if  you 
have  wrestled  till  the  break  of  day  for  the  blessing 
without  which  prophecy  is  hypocrisy,  you  will  know 
how  to  stand  between  God  and  your  people,  and  plead 
for  a  life  that  is  dearer  to  you  than  it  is  to  themselves ; 
and  not  to  do  it,  not  to  do  it  is  sin.  Where  is  the  point 
where  the  prophet's  labours  stop — with  the  sermon? 
Why,  they  don't  even  begin  there.  The  sermon  is 
made  in  the  secret  place.  With  the  labours?  The 
labours  are  of  no  use  without  the  prayers.  If  you  are 
mighty  in  prayer  God  will  take  care  of  your  tongue. 
Brethren,  let  us  take  care  to  pray ;  in  the  holy  of  holies 


2V4     CITY   TEMPLE    SERMONS 

be  familiar  with  God,  and  you  will  be  fearless  before 
men.  The  pews  sit  in  judgment  on  you,  man  of  au- 
thority. Let  the  man  tremble,  let  the  prophet  burn, 
scorch,  and  wither  them.  They  will  forget  to  sit  in 
judgment  on  you.  Even  when  they  hate  you  they  will 
know  that  you  are  true.  Never  keep  anything  back; 
declare  the  whole  counsel  of  God  as  it  is  given  to  you. 
Never  trouble  with  self-pity  or  strike  the  plaintive  note. 
You  who  come  from  the  outposts,  who  know  what  it  is 
to  suffer  where  there  is  no  brotherly  sympathy  to  help 
you,  you  are  not  alone;  for  if  men  forget,  or 
never  remember,  still  God  is  there — is  there.  And 
when  labour  is  fruitless,  still  there  is  prayer.  God 
forbid  that  we  should  sin  against  the  law;  for  when 
labour  is  vain  we  have  ceased  to  pray. 

"  O  power  to  do !     O  baffled  will ! 
O  prayer  and  action,  ye  are  one. 
Who  may  not  strive  may  yet  fulfil 
The  harder  task  of  standing  still, 
And  good  but  wished  with  God  is  done." 


XXIII 
PASSIVE    RESISTANCE* 

1FEEL  that  we  are  face  to  face  in  educational  mat- 
ters and  in  the  history  of  our  Free  Churches  with 
a  crisis  even  greater  than  that  of  1870.  It  is  prob- 
able that  in  after  years  our  descendants  will  refer  to 
the  conflict  which  is  now  before  us  as  having  been  the 
greatest  crisis  in  the  history  of  Nonconformity  in 
modern  times.  It  is  not,  I  believe,  the  greatest  crisis 
in  the  history  of  our  Free  Church  principles  in  this 
country.  The  best,  noblest,  and  most  strenuous  battle 
has  been  fought  for  us;  others  laboured,  and  we  are 
entered  into  their  labours.  But  Lord  Rosebery  has 
warned  us — and  he  speaks  with  authority — that  if  we 
flinch  at  the  present  crisis,  our  power  as  Nonconfor- 
mists and  as  a  public  force  will  be  extinct.  Whether 
his  lordship  is  right  or  not  time  will  determine,  but  I 
can  assure  him,  if  there  be  any  need  to  assure  him, 
that,  whether  he  fails  us  or  not,  we  shall  not  flinch  at 
the  present  crisis.  Our  fathers  never  shirked  a  battle 
for  the  rights  of  conscience,  neither  will  we.  The  con- 
flict concerning  passive  resistance  has  already  begun, 
and  I  am  glad  and  proud  that  he  who  leads  off  upon 
the  question  at  Oxford,  Dr.  Fairbairn,  was  our  spokes- 
man in  the  presence  of  Mr.  Balfour,  and  framed  and 
uttered  the  last  sentence  in  our  Nonconformist  protest : 
*'  To  the  proposal  to  establish  a  Clerical  majority  in 
*  Preached  in  The  City  Temple,  May  21,  1903. 
275 


276      CITY    TEMPLE    SERMONS 

the  schools  of  the  people  we  will  not  submit."  The 
Education  Act,  just  passed,  and  the  London  Education 
Bill,  now  before  Parliament,  are,  as  a  well-known 
Anglican  clergyman  and  member  of  the  London 
School  Board,  has  said,  "  brimful  of  iniquities."  I 
might  occupy  the  whole  time  at  our  disposal  in  de- 
nouncing the  Act  and  the  Bill  from  the  point  of  view 
of  a  citizen.  I  might  denounce  it  as  an  Educationist. 
I  leave,  for  the  moment,  these  points  of  view  severely 
alone ;  I  speak  as  a  Nonconformist  and  a  Christian. 
This  Act  puts  into  the  hands  of  Clerical  managers 
the  control  of  more  than  half  the  elementary  schools 
of  the  country  at  the  same  moment  that  it  places  those 
schools  entirely  upon  the  rates.  There  is  the  crux 
of  the  whole  question.  Many  people  confess  them- 
selves unable  to  understand  what  the  policy  of  Passive 
Resistance  means.  You  now  see  the  issue.  We,  as 
Nonconformists,  are,  for  the  first  time,  being  com- 
pelled to  pay  directly  (we  have  done  it  already,  indi- 
rectly) for  the  maintenance  of  a  form  of  religious  be- 
lief which  we  not  only  conscientiously  disapprove,  but 
against  which  our  very  existence  as  Nonconformists 
is  a  standing  protest.  We  are  not  Nonconformists  for 
fun.  I  believe  that  on  the  other  side  in  this  contro- 
versy there  are  many  who  really  do  not  understand 
what  our  position  is.  Presently  I  will  read  a  letter 
from  a  clergyman  for  whom  I  have  a  great  and  sincere 
respect — so  would  you  if  I  mentioned  his  name — in 
which  it  is  shown,  as  clearly  as  can  be,  that  many  well- 
meaning  men  on  the  other  side  of  this  controversy  mis- 
understand the  very  fundamentals  of  our  position  as 
Free  Churchmen.  We  object  to  being  compelled  to 
pay   for  a  form  of  religious  instruction  our  protest 


PASSIVE    RESISTANCE         277 

against  which  has  led  to  our  existence  as  Free  Church- 
men. This  is  a  monstrous  injustice,  one  in  the  pres- 
ence of  which  we  cannot  afford  to  be  mealy-mouthed, 
and  concerning  which  we  feel  compelled  to  take  the 
strongest  possible  stand,  be  the  consequences  what 
they  may.  A  gentleman  writing  to  the  Daily  Chron- 
icle yesterday  on  the  subject  of  the  resolution  passed 
by  the  Congregational  Union  a  few  nights  ago 
said  that  "  entire  sympathy "  does  not  mean  entire 
approval.  I  think  I  ought  at  this  point  to  enter  a  pro- 
test against  a  sentence  of  that  kind.  As  plainly  as  men 
could  say  anything,  the  Congregational  Union  has 
voiced  our  Churches  in  saying  that  we  have  now  been 
compelled  to  take  our  stand  side  by  side  with  those 
who  intend  to  adopt  the  policy  of  Passive  Resistance. 
If  that  were  not  the  meaning  of  the  resolution  passed 
on  Monday  night,  then  we  are  merely  juggling  and 
playing  with  words.  A  friend  has  told  me  that  he 
would  not  have  consented  to  the  introduction  of  the 
words  "  entire  sympathy  "  if  they  did  not  mean  entire 
approval.  I  would  warn  the  Government  that  they 
have  now  to  face  a  practically  homogeneous  Noncon- 
formity— half  the  religious  life  of  the  nation.  As  the 
Congregationalists  spoke  the  other  night,  so  the  Bap- 
tists are  speaking,  so  the  vast  majority  of  Methodists 
are  speaking,  so  Presbyterians  are  speaking  all  over 
the  land.    "  We  are  not  divided,  all  one  body  we." 

By  passive  resistance  to  the  new  Education  Act  we 
mean — and  the  struggle  is  now  upon  us — that  we  will 
put  the  Government  to  the  trouble  of  collecting  from 
us  the  new  sectarian  rate.  Personally  I  intend  to  ten- 
der a  portion  of  the  Education  Rate — that  portion 
which  is  not  sectarian — and,  as  I  have  said  more  than 


278      CITY    TEMPLE    SERMONS 

once  in  public  meetings  on  this  question,  we  can  make 
this  issue  perfectly  clear  to  the  general  public.  We 
will  pay  the  people's  rate,  we  will  not  pay  the  parson's 
rate.  As  the  Clerical  promoters  of  the  Education  Act 
know  perfectly  well,  whoever  appoints  the  teacher 
controls  the  school.  A  two-thirds  majority  upon  the 
management  means  really  the  whole  control.  If  you 
will  invert  that  proportion,  let  two-thirds  represent 
the  public  and  one-third  the  so-called  proprietors  of 
the  denominational  schools,  then,  I  believe,  though 
we  would  still  have,  much  to  complain  of,  our  Non- 
conformist policy  of  Passive  Resistance  would  fall  to 
the  ground.  I  do  not  represent  anybody  but  myself, 
and  I  feel  that  if  a  two-thirds  majority  upon  the  man- 
agement of  denominational  schools  were  granted  to 
the  public,  to  those  who  pay  the  rates,  then  I  should 
no  longer  have  much  excuse  for  refusing  my  portion 
of  that  rate.  Yet  we  would  still  have  much  to  com- 
plain of ;  in  the  mere  fact  that  there  are  denominational 
schools  is  something  which  we,  as  Nonconformists, 
exist  to  protest  against.  Our  principle  is  this :  It  is 
not  the  business  of  the  State  to  teach  denominational- 
ism  at  all.  We  are  assured  that  we  have  no  alternative 
to  offer;  supporters  of  the  Government  twit  us  with 
this,  and  say,  "  It  is  all  very  well  to  criticise ;  have  you 
anything  to  propose?  "  We  might  say,  "  Leave  things 
alone."  But  we  won't  do  that.  As  the  situation  has 
arisen,  we  are  prepared  to  deal  with  it.  We  have  an 
alternative  proposition.  The  alternative  is,  first,  let 
the  proprietors  of  denominational  schools  hand  them 
over  at  a  valuation.  If  you  are  not  prepared  for  that, 
then  use  them  for  the  ordinary  work  of  your  churches, 
and  allow  the  education  authority  to  hire  them  if  it  is 


PASSIVE    RESISTANCE         2Y9 

willing  to  do  so.  If  not,  do  as  Free  Churchmen  now 
do;  keep  them  for  the  use  of  your  churches,  and  that 
alone.  Do  not  ask  the  State  to  enter  and  help  you  to 
maintain  them,  but  allow  the  education  authority  to 
erect  such  schools  as  are  needed.  I  am  trying  my  very 
best  to  understand  the  position  of  such  men  as  Lord 
Hugh  Cecil,  and  I  think  I  have  got  so  far  as  to  be  able 
to  thoroughly  respect  the  motive  of  that  noble  lord.  In 
his  summons  to  us  to  join  with  him  and  his  friends 
in  a  campaign  against  materialism,  we  naturally  can 
feel  some  sympathy,  for  at  the  very  moment  when  ma- 
terialism, as  a  mode  of  thought,  as  a  speculation,  is 
dying  or  dead,  materialism  is  tightening  its  grip  upon 
our  public  and  commercial  life.  Lord  Hugh  Cecil  is 
perfectly  right  in  saying  Christians  should  close  the 
ranks,  fight  against  the  common  foe ;  but  I  claim,  and 
would  submit  to  his  lordship,  that  he  is  taking  a  wrong 
method  in  his  mode  of  meeting  the  difficulty.  We 
Free  Churchmen  do  not  propose  to  ask  the  State  to 
help  us  to  fight  materialism.  We  erect  our  schools 
and  churches,  and  maintain  them  without  any  assist- 
ance from  the  national  exchequer  at  all.  We  would 
repudiate  such  assistance  if  it  came ;  we  do  not  want 
it.  We  believe  that  the  Cross  of  Christ,  the  appeal 
to  the  consciences  of  men,  is  best  left  to  the  voluntary 
efiforts  of  those  who  believe  in  their  Christian  prin- 
ciples, and  are  prepared  to  pay  for  them.  Mr.  Balfour 
has  said,  and  Mr.  Chamberlain,  in  a  less  ingenuous 
way,  has  also  said,  that  it  is  quite  clear  that  the  nation 
has  declared  for  denominationalism  in  education. 
Both  statesmen  affect  to  demonstrate  this  by  a  refer- 
ence to  the  fact  that,  whereas  3,000,000  children  are 
being   educated   in   the   denominational   schools,   only 


280      CITY    TEMPLE    SERMONS 

2,600,000  are  being  educated  in  the  board  schools.  Mr. 
Balfour  ought  to  know  better  than  to  say  that  this  is 
a  proof  that  the  country  prefers  denominationalism, 
and  Mr.  Chamberlain  does  know  better. 

There  are  two  very  good  outstanding  reasons  why 
those  proportions  are  what  they  are.  We  prefer  the 
cheapest  thing  as  a  rule,  and  the  less  efficient  denom- 
inational schools  have  been  cheaper  for  the  last  thirty 
years  than  the  board  schools,  even  although  the  com- 
promise of  1870  has  been  gradually  encroached  upon 
until  five-sixths  of  the  cost  of  the  fonner  was,  until 
the  passing  of  the  new  Act,  being  defrayed  out  of  the 
exchequer,  and  now  with  the  exchequer  grant  and  the 
rates  together,  the  whole  of  that  cost  will  be  defrayed. 
Cheapness  is  one  grand  reason.  Voluntary  subscribers 
were  drawn  from  every  interest  which  felt  it  to  be 
worth  its  while  to  keep  out  the  school  board.  A  second 
reason  has  been  that,  as  the  law  now  stands,  where  a 
denominational  school  holds  the  ground  the  board 
school  must  keep  out,  whether  it  likes  it  or  not.  With 
a  fair  field  and  no  favour,  you  would  soon  find  whether 
Englishmen  prefer  denominational  to  undenomina- 
tional education. 

Mr.  Balfour  has  further  urged  upon  Nonconform- 
ists to  understand  that  the  Government  means  fairly 
with  them,  and  that  under  the  new  Act  we  can  erect 
our  denominational  schools  and  put  them  upon  the 
rates  and  taxes.  We  cannot  do  anything  of  the  sort. 
When  will  he  understand,  when  will  statesmen  gen- 
erally understand,  that  we  don't  want  State  pay  for 
our  Nonconformist  privileges  ?  Here  is  a  letter  which 
was  written  to  me  by  a  gentleman,  a  clergyman  of  the 
Church  of  England.    For  the  writer  I  have  great  re- 


J 


PASSIVE    RESISTANCE         281 

spect,  he  is  a  brother  in  Christ,  and  he  writes  like  one ; 
but  you  will  see  from  the  wording  of  this  letter  that 
Mr.  Balfour  is  not  alone  in  his  misapprehension  of  our 
position ;  he  says  : 

"  I  was  present  at  the  City  Temple  last  Thursday, 
and  heard  you  announce  your  intention  of  preaching  on 
Thursday  next  on  the  subject  of  the  Education  Bill. 
I  know  you  will  pennit  me,  as  a  brother  minister, 
though  of  a  different  denomination  from  yours,  to 
write  a  few  lines  upon  this  subject,  upon  which  I  have 
bestowed  a  great  deal  of  thought.  I  write  as  know- 
ing that  you  are  a  pronounced  anti-rate-payment  ad- 
vocate. I  am  one  who  believes  that  this  so-called 
'  passive  resistance '  is  one  of  the  darkest  phases  of 
'  conscientious  '  action  which  has  menaced  the  Church 
and  truth  of  God  for  many  a  day.  ...  I  know  all 
the  arguments  on  which  it  is  supported,  and  as  a 
Christian  (though  one  who  greatly  cherishes  the  fel- 
lowship of  every  evangelical  branch  of  the  Church 
catholic)  I  naturally  feel  a  little  strongly  on  some 
points  which  I  consider  to  be  rather  overlooked  by 
Nonconformists.     For  instance : 

"  (i)  The  fact  that  the  Church  of  England  has, 
since  1870,  gone  on,  uncomplainingly,  paying  the 
School  Board  rate,  thus  supporting  a  form  of  things 
(set  on  foot  with  a  view  to  the  overthrow  of  our 
schools)  which  we  disapproved." 

If  that  gentleman  be  here  now  I  would  like  to  say 
to  him,  in  the  same  friendly  fashion  in  which  he  has 
written  to  me :  That  first  point  was  scarcely  worth  your 
stating ;  it  will  hoist  you  with  your  own  petard.  Since 
1870  the  Board  School  system,  which  avowedly  came 
into  existence  not  to  supplant  but  to  supplement  the 


282      CITY    TEMPLE    SERMONS 

work  which  the  denominational  schools  were  already 
doing,  has  grown  increasingly  in  public  favour,  just 
because  it  was  neither  Nonconformist  nor  Anglican. 
If  it  was  set  on  foot  with  a  view  to  the  overthrow  of 
your  schools,  what  have  you  been  doing  in  sitting  upon 
School  Boards  at  all?  You  have  been  there  as  much 
as  we.  You  have  controlled  the  policy  in  not  a  few 
cases,  and,  as  has  been  pointed  out  again  and  again, 
the  Board  School  is  not  a  Nonconformist  school,  nor 
is  undenominationalism  Nonconformist  education. 
Surely  we  profess  in  common  the  principles — shall  we 
call  them  even  principles  ? — the  Bible  knowledge  which 
has  been  taught  in  Board  Schools  for  thirty  years,  and 
taught  with  efficiency,  as  statistics  prove.  Dr.  Clif- 
ford has  said,  "  The  Bible  is  not  a  Nonconformist 
book,  unless  you  make  it  so."  The  second  point  in 
the  letter  is : 

"  (2)  That  while  paying  these  rates  we  have,  by  vol- 
untary effort,  strenuously  and  constantly  maintained 
and  developed  our  own  elementary  schools,  with  im- 
mense self-sacrifice,  these  thirty-two  years,  and  thus, 
in  all  justice,  have  deserved  to  continue." 

I  meet  that  point  with  the  greatest  respect.  I  know 
Anglicans,  scores  of  them,  who  represent  thousands 
whom  I  don't  know,  who  do  conscientiously  pay  for 
the  maintenance  of  their  schools  because  the  principles 
of  the  Church  of  England  are  so  dear  to  them.  But 
you  beg  the  question.  The  question  is  not  that  you 
have  sacrificed  for  the  maintenance  of  these  schools, 
and  that  they  deserve  to  continue ;  the  question  is,  first, 
does  the  nation  want  them  to  continue?  and,  second, 
you  have  gained  a  great  deal  from  the  use  of  the  word 
Voluntary  for  your  schools,  and  so  on.     In  reality,  you 


PASSIVE    RESISTANCE        283 

have  been  paying  only  one-sixth  of  the  cost ;  the  rest 
has  been  paid  by  Nonconformists  in  common  with 
Churchmen  through  the  national  exchequer.  We  ad- 
mit all  your  sacrifices.  ^But  our  Nonconformist  prin- 
ciple is  that  you  should  not  seek  to  meddle  with  the 
appointment  of  the  teachers,  who  are  the  national  ser- 
vants in  this  respect.  If  your  principles  are  dear  to 
you,  do  what  you  have  done,  erect  your  own  schools^ 
and  keep  them  free.  In  practice,  whatever  we  may 
think  about  it,  the  time  has  come  when  your  denomina- 
tionalism,  about  which  I  admit  you  ought  to  feel  more 
in  earnest  than  you  do  about  the  rule  of  three,  ought 
to  be  kept  from  such  complications  as  you  have  your- 
selves imposed.     My  correspondent  further  says : 

"  (3)  That  the  Act  of  1902  has  preserved  to  us  a 
minimum  of  such  advantage  as  our  ownership  of  more 
than  half  the  elementary  schools  of  the  land  pointed 
out  as  our  due,  vast  concessions  having  been  made  to 
the  opposition.  .  ,  .  Had  Nonconformists  be- 
stirred themselves  years  ago,  and  done  anything  ade- 
quate for  the  education  of  the  country,  they  would 
now  have  their  fair  share  of  consideration  and  their 
due  opportunity  of  training  up  their  children  day  by 
day  in  their  own  forms  of  religious  faith." 

You  see,  Mr.  Balfour  over  again.  When  you,  sir, 
have  made  one-half  of  the  sacrifices  and  endured  a 
tithe  of  the  suffering  which  Nonconformists  have 
made  and  endured  for  the  sake  of  their  principles,  you 
can  exhort  us  to  sacrifice.  During  the  thirty-two  years 
we  have  erected  churches  and  schools,  though  we  have 
by  no  means  such  a  wealthy  constituency  as  you  have. 
We  have  not  gone  cap  in  hand  to  the  State  for  any- 
thing.     In   those   schools   our  principles   have  been 


284      CITY    TEMPLE    SERMONS 

taught  under  our  own  vine  and  fig  tree,  no  man  daring 
to  make  us  afraid.  And,  mark  this,  it  is  often  over- 
looked. If  statistics  prove  anything  at  all,  they  prove 
that  the  Sunday-schools  of  the  various  churches  are 
educating  in  religion  the  majority  of  the  children  of 
this  country.  Do  not  ask  us  to  make  sacrifices  which 
mean  that  we  must  take  State  pay.  Look  at  the  sacri- 
fices we  have  made  in  order  that  we  might  not  take 
State  pay. 

Mr.  Balfour,  in  genuine  surprise,  I  think,  has  asked 
us  to  remember  that  in  refusing  to  pay  the  rates  now 
we  are  taking  our  stand  too  late.  He  says :  "  You 
have  already  been  paying  for  the  maintenance  of  a 
form  of  religious  instruction  in  which  you  do  not  be- 
Heve,  but  you  paid  through  the  taxes."  Yes,  quite 
right ;  but  when  you  put  the  schools  upon  the  rates  we 
know  a  little  better  where  we  are.  We  can  refuse  just 
so  much  of  the  new  rate  as  is  for  sectarian  purposes 
pure  and  simple.  Besides,  the  compromise  of  1870 
was  not  of  our  making;  it  was  forced  upon  us,  we 
submitted  to  it ;  for  thirty-two  years,  under  protest, 
we  have  continued  to  submit.  But  from  your  side  you 
have  encroached  upon  it  little  by  little,  until  now  no 
shred  of  it  remains.  And,  were  it  not  so,  it  would  not 
matter  much  to  me.  I  should  say  a  point  has  been 
reached  in  the  history  of  our  Nonconformity,  and  in 
the  injustice  meted  out  to  us,  beyond  which  we  shall 
bear  no  more.  The  whole  question  has  been  reopened, 
and  we  take  our  stand  as  educationists,  as  we  have  al- 
ways done,  in  demanding,  not  a  sectarian,  but  a  national 
system — graded,  efficient,  unsectarian.  State-controlled, 
locally  administered  by  authorities  elected  "  ad  hoc." 
But  according  to  some  of  our  weaker-kneed  brethren, 


PASSIVE    RESISTANCE         285 

together  with  our  conscientious  opponent,  you  are  per- 
forming an  illegal  action  in  refusing  your  rate.  What 
is  the  difference  between  passive  and  active  resistance, 
after  all?  Well,  there  is  a  big  difference.  If  any  of 
our  brethren  turned  extremely  obdurate,  active  re- 
sistance would  mean  that  we  should  bolt  and  bar  our 
windows  and  watch  at  the  orifice  with  shot-guns.  But 
we  don't  do  that.  When  the  rate-collector  rings  the 
bell  we  shall  open  the  door;  he  shall  come  in  and  seize 
the  hall  clock,  if  we  have  one,  and  he  shall  take  it  out, 
and  none  of  us  will  lay  a  hand  upon  it;  we  may  even 
be  in  the  crowd  to  buy  it.  Illegal — it  may  be  so;  I 
have  seen  a  legal  opinion  to  that  effect.  Lawless,  my 
clerical  correspondent  calls  the  policy,  making  a  dan- 
gerous precedent  which  may  be  followed  by  all  kinds 
of  extremists,  Anarchists,  and  such,  in  the  time  to 
come.  Well,  we  will  take  the  risk.  The  moral  sense 
of  the  country  is  with  us,  and  it  would  not  be  with  the 
Anarchists.  Moreover,  remember,  we  are  not  making 
a  precedent.  Our  Nonconformist  liberties  have  been 
won,  as  Dr.  Parker  was  accustomed  to  say,  at  the 
spear-point.  They  have  often  been  won  by  breaking 
the  law,  "  Render  unto  Csesar  the  things  that  are 
Csesar's."  But  when  the  things  that  are  Caesar's  come 
into  conflict  with  the  things  that  are  God's,  one  must 
go,  and  we  know  which.  Supposing,  then,  it  be  illegal 
to  refuse  to  pay  the  rate,  then  I  will  break  the  law. 
Remember  that,  in  so  doing,  we  have  precedent  which 
has  established  our  Nonconformity,  which  I  venture  to 
say  has  established  what  is  best  in  our  nationality. 
John  Bunyan  went  to  Bedford  Gaol  because  of  the  law 
that  bade  him  stop  preaching.  He  said  :  We  oueht  to 
obey   God   rather  than  men.     Cromwell   instituted  a 


286      CITY    TEMPLE    SERMONS 

court  which  tried  a  king,  and  ended  by  cutting  off  his 
head;  the  king  pleaded  that  there  was  no  jurisdiction, 
it  was  an  illegal  act  either  to  try  or  to  condemn.  But 
his  head  went  off,  and  British  liberties  were  safe. 

I  am  one  of  those  who  believe  that  Nonconformity 
is  now  in  a  position  to  dictate  terms,  and  the  time 
may  come  when  we  shall  have  to  dictate  them  to  what 
is  now  His  Majesty's  Opposition. 

The  time  has  come  to  cut  away  this  denominational 
question  from  the  question  of  national  education.  We 
know  exactly  where  we  are,  and  what  we  have  got  to 
do.  We  are  compelled  to  passive  resistance,  it  is  the 
equivalent  left  to  us  by  the  House  of  Lords  upon  the 
other  side,  and,  if  necessary,  we  will  proceed  to  the 
solution  of  this  national  question  over  the  ruins  of  the 
House  of  Lords.  For  the  first  time  for  many  years 
the  working  men  are  on  the  same  platform  as  the  Non- 
conformists. Nonconformity  and  Labour  together 
can  make  or  unmake  any  Government,  but  if  we  are 
alone,  if  we  had  no  Labour  party,  no  Lord  Rosebery, 
no  Sir  Henry  Campbell-Bannerman,  no  Liberal  Party 
at  all  to  play  fast  and  loose  with  us — for,  remember, 
we  all  think  it,  we  were  not  well  represented  in  the 
House  of  Commons  during  the  Education  Debate, 
from  the  front  benches,  at  any  rate — if  we  had  none 
of  these,  we  will  take  our  stand  on  the  old  platform 
of  Nonconformist  principle.  It  is  a  good  thing  that 
we  have  to  fight  again,  it  will  put  some  backbone  into 
us.  Have  no  fear  about  the  issue.  May  God  defend 
the  right! 


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